


Just Let Me In

by Krasimer



Series: The Summerhold Chronicles [3]
Category: Danny Phantom, Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Insane Vlad, M/M, Not Phantom Planet Compliant, Phantom Planet didn't happen, altered timeline, older Danny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-03-30 15:44:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 43,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3942397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasimer/pseuds/Krasimer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"A chance for real power," Vlad hissed the words, the teeth of his ghost half showing through. "Access to the Nightmare Throne, the chance to be a king of a world without you in it. My dear boy, what do you honestly think is happening here? Do use your brain, what little of it you have left after fighting for so many years."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. On The Subject of Family

In between a flurry of paper that resembled snow and a slew of curses, Vlad hurried across the room.

Finally pulling a book off the shelf, he sighed, almost relieved as he flipped through it. Pages and pages of ancient text zipped past as he scanned through the tome, eyes narrowing with each one that did not hold what it was he sought. He stood next to his portal to the ghost world, the electric green of it flashing as though it were a lightening storm. In the resulting power surges, his hair was standing on end, shoulders tensed against some unknown worry.

The book fell open, as if manipulated by unseen hands, to a page with a portal looking device drawn on it.

"Ah." he hissed, thin lips drawn back as his eyes lit up. Turning to look across the room, he bared his teeth in a spine-tingling grin, more of a threat than a smile. With the book in hand, he made his way across the room, towards the device that matched the drawing on the yellowed paper. "So it is complete."

It stood before him, a vast maw of wood and metal, hand assembled over many nights, nights that he had spent awake and consumed by the project.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a small voice tried to protest as Vlad wrapped his fingers tightly around the mechanism that would open the new door. He ignored it, the dark circles under his eyes telling of how far gone he was. "At last," he whispered, "Access to the Nightmare Throne." 

A wisp of hot air tumbled over his lips and he snarled as he turned around, the tail of hair that he normally kept fastidious swirling around his face. "Daniel Phantom, how wonderful of you to stop by."

Danny floated back a little, eyes wide as he stared at the scene before him. "Vlad- What's going on here?"

"A chance for real power," Vlad hissed the words, the teeth of his ghost half showing through. "Access to the Nightmare Throne, the chance to be a king of a world without you in it. My dear boy, what do you honestly think is happening here? Do use your brain, what little of it you have left after fighting for so many years." he paused to take a breath, then snarled again as the black rings of his transformation swept over him. Plasmius stood in front of Danny now, his purely red eyes pinned to the young adult.

"Vlad, please, lets talk about this." Danny dropped to the floor, hands held up in a gesture of peace. He swallowed nervously, bright green eyes focused entirely on the older halfa. "Please." he begged, one hand held out as he stepped forward. "Just, just take your hand off the lever, we can talk about this."

"It is six years too late for you to talk me down, Daniel!" Vlad scowled at the younger man, claws digging into the metal handle, denting it slightly. 

Before either of them could say anything else, the door opened on it's own, spitting a cluster of people out onto the floor of Vlad's laboratory. Startled, Danny zipped away from them, towards Vlad, both of his eyebrows arched. With the older man distracted, Danny managed to slide his hand off of the lever, pulling him away from the machine entirely. 

"Oh, that was far from pleasant." one of the people muttered. "William?"

Another one of them groaned, proving that he was still alive, and flopped his arm out to the side. The action seemed to release something that seemed to be made entirely of hair that jumped on the first speaker until he set something on the ground and scooted over to the other man. "Can you speak or has the trip robbed you of that?"

"I can speak, and I must say that that was the most unfortunate way of travelling that I have ever had to experience." he shuddered as he sat up, rubbing carefully at the back of his neck. "It seems that we have made it?" he cast a glance around the room, eyes landing on the fourth member of their party. "Willow?"

The third human didn't stir, and Vlad's eyebrows were arching up ever higher to meet his hairline. Danny took charge instead, guiding the older halfa away from the machine. "Excuse me?"

The two men paused in their inspection of the unconscious companion, the shorter one looking up at Danny. "Oh, hello. I must apologize for the intrusion."

"No, you're fine, you just stopped Vlad from doing something he shouldn't be doing...I think." Danny gestured at Vlad, who was still frozen in confusion. "What exactly brought you here? From what I can tell, the thing you came through isn't good."

"You are correct about that," the man stood slowly, rubbing at his knees. "But I must beg you to believe that we are not of the same caliber as what lies beyond the Door."

"Vlad built the thing, and he hasn't been-" Danny cut himself off with a shake of his head. "Anyways, can I get your names? I know that the girl is Willow, and I think he's William, but I'm not entirely sure and things are kind of weird right now."

"Ah." the man extended his hand. "My name is Wilson Higgsbury. The two travelling with me are William Carter and Willow Amadeus." he gestured down at the hairy beast that was holding a bone in it's mouth. "And that is Chester. It's short for Chesterfield, which is simply one part of a much longer name."

Danny shook Wilson's hand, smiling. "Nice to meet you. Next question is, why did you come through the scary looking door?"

"It was how we exited the world we were trapped in." Wilson explained immediately, turning to help William stand. Vlad watched all of this in silence, his jaw slack as he saw Wilson's hand come to a stop on William's chest, a soothing circle of his thumb over the taller man's collarbone. "It appeared and freed us, so I must ask that you forgive me and my friends for our unscheduled arrival in your home."

With a bright red flush on his cheeks, Danny shook his head. "It's not my house, it's Vlad's. I just came to stop him from doing something kind of insane an-"

"Did you say 'William Carter'?" Vlad interrupted, finding his voice.

William nodded, meeting Vlad's eyes. "Yes. Is there a reason you object to my name?" he studied the black hair that spiked out from Vlad's head, an eyebrow arching smoothly as he took in the cape and the color of his eyes. "You seem to be a specter of some kind."

Not saying anything just yet, Vlad transformed back, blue eyes almost as big as saucers. "William Carter, the older brother of Jackson Carter?"

"...Why do you know my brother's name?" William stepped closer, leaning down just enough to meet Vlad's eyes. "Setting aside the questions I wish to ask concerning your appearance just now, you seem oddly compelled to know my name."

Vlad swallowed, his throat making a clicking noise. "Did you have a niece named Wilhelmina?"

"Yes."

Blinking rapidly, Vlad slumped down on the ground, his hands coming up to cover his mouth. All the fight seemed to have left him, his arms shaking even as he tried to still them. A few minutes passed, all conscious eyes on him as he breathed shallowly. "Wilhelmina Abigail Carter."

Nodding again, William approached slowly. "Why do you ask?"

The question seemed to trigger something in Vlad's brain, and he stuck his hand out. "Vlad Masters." he waited until William shook it, then looked up to meet his eyes. "And I ask because that was my mother's maiden name. When she had me, she was married to a man named Edward Masters, who was my father, making her Wilhelmina Abigail Masters."

The thud that followed as William dropped unconscious to the floor beside his nephew shook the lab.


	2. Not Where You Want To Be

Danny shifted his head so that his chin was in his palm, frowning at Vlad while the man slept.

Surprisingly, he didn't look nearly as insane as he did when he was awake. Unconsciousness seemed to soften his features, the dark circles under his eyes seeming like exhaustion instead of psychosis. The pallor of his skin was obvious against the deep blue of his bed-set, and he seemed to have long since discarded the suit jacket he always wore. Only a few minutes after William had dropped, Vlad had too.

With a sigh, Danny rolled his head around until his neck cracked, then listened to the footsteps of the new arrivals. 

The woman, Willow, had woken up not too long ago, her eyes wide as she looked around. From what he could get out of the three of them, she was the most recent of them, the two men coming from much earlier in the nineteen hundreds. 

That thought brought him back to Vlad, however, and he scrubbed a hand through his hair. The older Halfa had fainted at the realization that one of the men was his uncle, and Danny just did not know what to do with that. Vlad had never, not once in their interactions, seemed to have any sort of weakness that resulted in this. He'd never seen the man faint before, not unless it was to do with some outside force.

Vlad Masters wasn't supposed to...

Danny licked his lips nervously, trying to figure out where he was going with that. Wasn't supposed to what? Faint? Go crazy and come up with some plot? That second one was pretty par for the course, actually.

Wasn't supposed to seem like he cared about anyone?

...Wasn't supposed to seem human?

Pushing back his chair, Danny stood and stretched, then sighed again. It was a truth, however much he tried to ignore it, that Vlad was the same as him. Circumstances were a little different, that was for sure, but they were both Halfa's. They had both been created by the experiments of Jack and Maddie Fenton, completely accidentally on both counts. The main difference, as far as Danny could tell, was that he'd had his friends with him through the entire ordeal. 

Sam and Tucker were the best things that could have happened to him, honestly. He hadn't been left alone when they realized that things were different about him, and he had gained even more people as time passed. 

Now he was completely free to talk about the entire thing in front of his family, his parents had apologized repeatedly for the threats that they had unknowingly said to him, and his sister was the best place for him to go when he needed to talk to someone. He glanced back at the bed, frowning. Vlad had never had any of that, not from what the man had spouted in their fights over the years.

Which made very little sense because he distinctly remembered his parents telling him about visiting the man in the hospital and sending cards when they couldn't.

Torn between walking out the door and heading back to his seat next to the bed, Danny groaned and let his head lead him to the wall, making a 'thunk' sort of noise. "Damn it Plasmius, I shouldn't feel sorry for you." he hissed the words out, then headed for the door when someone knocked on it.

"Ah, hello." William greeted when he saw Danny. "I just came to check up on my nephew."

Every inch of his posture spoke of nerves, like he wasn't sure what he was supposed to say. Even the word 'nephew' coming from him seemed off, like he'd never even thought to use it before. Danny scooted to the side, gesturing back at the bed. "He's still out, I guess he must have needed the sleep."

"If I recall correctly," William spoke after a moment, his hands clasped together in front of him, fingers curled around themselves. "The Door must be built in one go, no room for breaks or sleep." he paused, then gestured back out of the room. "Wilson built the one he used in the space of about a week, and he did not sleep in that entire time."

"That's kind of a shitty requirement." Danny muttered before he could stop himself. "How many people have walked themselves into dying because they didn't sleep while making the damn thing?"

William nodded. "A good thought, but surprisingly few. There are so few who even know about the Door and the building of it."

"Good, because it feels like it might be the sort of thing that needs to stay hidden." Danny crossed his arms over his chest. In the mirror across the room he spotted himself, a brief look of panic on his face as he jerked out of the position and stuffed his hands in his pockets. Between the muscles in his arms, the annoyed look on his face, and the short facial hair, he had looked entirely too much like Dan to be comfortable. "Don't even know how Vlad found out about it."

"He has the books I used to make it." William explained. "I beg pardon for the intrusion, but I looked around his laboratory. He seems to have many of the items from my life."

The much taller man arched an eyebrow, looking thoroughly un-amused at Danny. 

Danny snorted. "That sounds about right, Vlad tends to collect things that he finds useful or he thinks gives him bragging rights." a few more seconds passed. "Hey, I said it earlier and I will say it again; I don't live with the guy. I had no idea until I came here earlier today that he even had anything like this going."

His face relaxing, William nodded. "Forgive my assumptions. You just seem familiar with his home and his bedroom."

Face bright red now, Danny managed to shrug almost completely nonchalantly. "Y-yeah, that's because he's lived here since I was fourteen and just starting to get the hang of my powers. He followed me here because it's not everyday that you find someone like you, even if he did kind of offer to train me by layering it with death threats towards my dad."

He slapped both his hands over his mouth, trying to stem the flow of words. 

William laughed. "You seem oddly familiar. Wilson does that too, once he starts talking." he said it fondly, turning back to look at his nephew. "I propose that we let him sleep, go and have a conversation between the four of us about what is happening."

Nodding, Danny started walking out of the room, waiting for William to leave it before he glanced back in and pulled the door closed. As he walked away, following the much taller man back to where the other two were, something in his chest clenched at the idea of leaving Vlad alone. "So, how exactly did the three of you meet? You all seem really different, like you'd never run into each other unless forced to."

"I met Wilson because I made a deal with him." William explained, his voice soft. "And I met Willow because she saved my life."  
Danny frowned. "Weird."

"Yes?"

"It's just-" Danny shook his head. "I thought you guys said that only the king of the Throne could makes deals with pe- Oh." he glanced up at William's face. "Oh."

"Yes." William nodded, clasping his hands behind his back. "When I met Wilson, I was the King of the Shadow Throne, and I was a horrible person. I will freely admit to that, and I will also admit that I have sought forgiveness."

"And I've given it to him." Wilson's voice called out from the dining room, the door open. It was probably left like that to tell William which door he needed to go back through, Danny thought as they approached. Unfamiliar territory requires clues to help him find his way back. Wilson stuck his head out the door, one hand on the frame of it. "Is your nephew alright?"

"He appears to be sleeping normally." William answered, taking the last few steps towards the shorter man and sliding their fingers together. "I suspect that he will be asleep for some time, given that he single-handedly assembled a Door and then did not get to utilize it."

"Does that matter?" Danny asked, head tilted as the three of them stepped into the room.

Wilson nodded. "The Door, when you enter it, replenishes whatever it was that you were forced to give up on the build it. Exhaustion, starvation, all of that...The Door puts you back to a full amount of health and sanity when you enter through it."

"I would not say it returns your sanity to you," William pulled a chair out for Wilson, helping him slide back in when he was seated. "But I would have to agree with the rest of your words."

He sat in the seat directly next to the man, his head held high despite the obvious exhaustion that showed around his edges. Now that he was looking, Danny could see the relation to Vlad. In the line of his nose and the shape of his chin, especially in his profile, William looked like a dead ringer for the man.

It occurred to him that maybe, if Vlad had been unaltered by the accident, maybe this is what he would have looked like.

Danny had seen pictures when his parents were feeling in particularly sharing moods. His dad was almost always up for sharing them, and all he had to do was ask. His mom, due to the interactions between her and the older Halfa, was a little less open about it. He knew that the older Halfa had once had black hair that he'd messed around with until it had a dyed white stripe in the middle.

Sitting down next to Willow, Danny frowned. 

Vlad still had a white stripe down the middle of his hair. It was a lot harder to see now, but he had it in his ghost form too. The hair that he had dyed when he was a young adult was still-

Oh.

Danny leaned his arms on the table, his face screwed up as he thought about it. Vlad still had the altered color in his hair that had been there when he'd had the accident. What else had stayed the same?

 

Waking up felt like misery incarnate.

Vlad groaned as he sat up slowly, refusing to open his eyes until he was completely upright and still again. Even so, cracking them open gave him a dizzying whirl of dark and bright, the lights above him fighting with the dark fabric of what felt like his bed. After some grumbling, he managed to curl his legs closer, making himself less of a target to whatever might be lurking in the room.

Making a face, Vlad gagged quietly, the dryness of his throat just one more sensory detail that irked him right then.

Out of the corner of his eye, his vision still slightly betraying him, Vlad spotted a glass of water. Reaching for it and steadying his hand with his other as he brought it to his mouth, he drained the entire thing in one go. As he did, he though about what had happened before, his eyebrows drawn into a deep furrow as he realized what he had done. 

He had tried to open the Shadow Door.

The glass, now empty, slipped from his hands to fall to the bed. It's journey was somewhat altered by it landing on his knee instead.

Vlad let out a noise that was embarrassingly high-pitched, going immediately to clutch at the offended limb, curling around it and pressing his face to the bedspread. "Right, Masters," he muttered to himself. "You just had to buy the ones that had the metal bottoms to them." rubbing at his knee, he stretched his neck from side to side, the mental fog that had pervaded his last week gone.

In the light of day, having slept, Vlad was almost ashamed of what he had done.

"Metal bottoms to a glass might be a better fate for it than it would have gotten if it had landed elsewhere." someone spoke. "I would suggest that you wake now, and come join the rest of us."

"I am awake." Vlad hissed, eyes still closed as he berated himself for not noticing someone approaching. 

"You have been asleep for three days, by the by." the speaker cleared his throat, causing Vlad to finally look up at him. William Carter stood at the foot of the bed, his hands clasped together behind his back and his glasses perched on his nose in a manner that suggested he had been fiddling with them. "My definition of waking includes dressing in clothing, or at the very least changing clothes."

Vlad nodded, moving so that his legs were off the bed, his feet flat on the floor. "How did I get to my bed? I remember falling asleep in my lab."

"The Fenton boy dragged you up here when you collapsed." William answered him, watching his nephew's face. "At least that is what I was told. I am afraid that I was unconscious as well." he smiled in a way that seemed bitter, but was softened by the look in his eyes as he stared at the wall. "It seems that our blood relation is exactly as you suspected."

Grumbling, Vlad nodded as he stood up slowly, clutching at one of the posts of his bed to help steady himself. "If I hadn't been more than halfway sure, I would not have mentioned it until I had done more research into the subject. I have managed to track down every last photo of you that still exists, I believe." he glanced up at his uncle, frowning. "Do you know how hard it is to find photos from the early nineteen-hundreds? Or the late eighteen-hundreds?"

He shook his head. "At any rate, my point is that I knew who you were the moment I saw your face, and I was actually hoping that I was wrong." Shuffling across the room to his closet and dresser, Vlad sighed. "But of course, my research into my genealogy is correct, and your name matched it and everything gets more complicated and odd."

"More complicated than your powers?" William asked calmly, doing a smooth turn on his toes to continue watching his nephew move around the room. 

Vlad paused, fingers curled around a hanger with a fresh shirt on it. "You-"

"You transformed in front of us, young Daniel informed on the rest." William's mouth quirked up at the corner, a small smirk that made the relation to the man in front of him even more obvious. 

"I suppose he neglected to mention other bits of information, such as some things about himself." Vlad snarled quietly, hooking the hanger over his wrist and searching through his closet until he found a pair of slacks that were only a few shades lighter than the ones he wore. 

William's smirk vanished. "You give the boy too little credit. So far, my opinion of him is higher than my opinion of you." he took a deep breath, his hands clenching into knuckle cracking fists for just a second. "He was open and honest about everything, even the very state of existence that connects the two of you." 

Leaning back from the taller man slightly, Vlad's eyes went wide. "Daniel actually-"

"Despite everything that you have brought down upon him, the boy respects you, even if the revelation of that respect is torn by the knowledge of all you have done." William scolded. "As for me, I must find time to reprimand you for your use of the Door. Have you lost your mind? That is a magic beyond what you should know, Vladimr." he waved at the wardrobe. "It would not do for you to be late for dinner in your own house for the fourth day in a row, however, so dressing is necessary."

Vlad swallowed heavily, two spots of embarrassed red high on his cheeks. Without another word, he turned from his uncle and continued choosing clothing, feeling the man's eyes on the back of his neck the entire time.

Before he could slip into the bathroom that was connected to his bedroom, William spoke again. "Power is not something you should seek so single-mindedly. There are other pursuits that would not leave you quite as lonely."

When Vlad turned around to look back at him, the man was already slipping out the door into the hall, the heel of his shoe coming down pointedly on the threshold. 

Stepping into the shower, Vlad let the hot water sluice down his back as he pressed his forehead to the tile, his hair slicked against his shoulders. If anyone had been watching, they would have seen him shaking, the tears building up in the corners of his eyes.

As it was, he was alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry that this took so long to get up for you to read, but I was having a rough time with some things.
> 
> Anyways, as per usual, tell me what you think? Enjoying the story?


	3. To Breathe The Name Of Your Savior

Vlad's hands shook as he poured himself a cup of coffee, and for a moment he was afraid that he would drop the pot.

Behind him at the table, sitting in the newly bought pajamas that had been acquired the day before, was a man he had only ever known through photos and stories. Even if some of the stories that his mother had told him were a little fanciful, he was glad that she had shared them. The woman had been a tad bit too obsessed with ghosts for his father's tastes, but he would never have given up the stories for anything.

Shuffling into the room was the third of four people who was due to join them, and Vlad greeted him quietly over his shoulder.

Wilson was an odd piece of the story, a chapter that he had somehow skipped in the telling of everything, a chunk of the book that he hadn't read. At the risk of stretching the metaphor, the pages had been ripped out and presented to him at the end. The shorter man stumbled over to William and settled into the chair at his side, pressing his forehead against his upper arm and letting his eyes slip closed once more.

Vlad did his best to ignore the twist in his stomach. 

More than twenty years had passed since Maddie's marriage to Jack, and he had long since given up on attempting to steal her away. Even with all that time in between what he'd had and what was now, the jealousy and anger that ate away at him was horrible. The chasm that lay between him and what had once been his two best friends was...

He frowned, bringing his mug over to the fridge and pulling out the creamer. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as his uncle leaned down to kiss Wilson's hairline, brushing the wild strands out of his face. William whispered something to the shorter man, then looked up at Vlad, an eyebrow raised. "Were there plans that you had for today?"

"No, actually." Vlad responded, just barely managing to keep himself mostly polite. If he focused on the feeling in the pit of his stomach, he could identify it as jealousy, but he didn't want to identify it. So instead, he took a sip of his coffee and shrugged. When he swallowed, he raised both of his eyebrows at the two men-out-of-time. "I was debating taking you around town and showing you how the world has changed."

"I do not think that I could muster enough calm to take in the changes as if I were already used to them." William cautioned him, peering over the edges of his glasses. 

"This is Amity Park," Vlad countered. "No one would even notice."

The technically-older man continued to frown at him, ever so slightly, and Vlad set his mug on the counter, leaning back on his palms. "Besides that," he continued. "You must need new glasses. I am guessing here, but your prescription has probably changed in the full century since you got them, and I am entirely sure that the science behind glasses has changed as well."

Almost self consciously, William's hand came up to nudge his glasses higher on his nose. "I will if you actually start wearing yours."

"...How did you-"

William arched a brow at him, the resemblance between the two men even more obvious in that moment. "You squint when you're looking at things, as if they are not entirely in focus, and that is a dreadful sensation that I remember very well from before I ever got my first pair."

A short stand off occurred between them, each one staring at the other and refusing to look away first.

Vlad buckled first. "Fine." he grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest and looking away, a small flush on his cheeks like an embarrassed school boy who had gotten caught doing something he had been told not to. "We will go today. The last pair I have are from the eighties, before the incident that..." he gestured rather helplessly at himself. "You get the idea."

"I do indeed." William's gaze nearly drilled a hole in Vlad's cheek for how intently he was staring. "And I would like to hear, if I may, about that incident in greater detail."

"What, you mean that Daniel didn't tell you?" Vlad sneered, his hands tightening into white knuckled fists on his elbows. "I thought for sure that the boy would take every chance to lord his 'superiority' over me, to tell everyone who would listen what I had done to earn my ghost half."

"He mentioned that his father had done calculations wrong," Wilson cut in, his voice still soft with exhaustion. "And that you never should have been exposed in the first place."

Vlad's jaw dropped slightly, and then his lips moved like he was trying to say something. When no words came out, Wilson opened his eyes and smiled. "You are not nearly as hated as you think you are." he whispered, taking a moment to stretch out his neck. "And I find myself wondering what it would take for you to see that."

"You already know, pal." William muttered, curling the first two fingers gently and tapping them against the bottom of Wilson's chin. In response, Wilson wrapped his hand around William's elbow. "I know that you already know."

"I do, yes." Wilson yawned, a jaw cracking sort of yawn, then stood and walked to the stove, pulling the tea kettle towards him and walking it to the sink. As he filled it with water, he reached out and patted consolingly at Vlad's shoulder. "And I hope that he knows as well one day. It's not a useful piece of knowledge if I am the only one to have it."

Vlad allowed the patting, still blinking in confusion.

William stood slowly, his long legs stretching as he went, his hands braced on the table. "I would like, at some point, to speak with my nephew alone." he strode around the table, coming to a halt at Wilson's side. "But for now, I must mention that there will be no more research into the Throne or the Door. You will leave them where they lie, and you will not pursue them again."

"Why not?" Vlad snapped out of his dazed state to hiss the words at his uncle, eyes narrowed at the man. "It's not as if there's anything that keeps me here, why would you keep me from taking a throne? Nothing-"

"The Throne is a much more vicious entity than you, you will not seek it." William hissed back, his own eyes narrowing in a mirror of his nephew's. "It nearly destroyed you, and all you did was build the Door that leads to it and the world it controls." Wilson's hand on his shoulder forced him to take a calming deep breath and step back. "Take it from someone who inhabited it for nearly a century."

Vlad's jaw dropped slowly, the realization of what that meant hitting him. "You weren't just trapped there. You ruled there."

"I have come to know every single inch of that world, and I can tell you that the power it might bring is nothing compared to the agony of sitting on that Throne with no end in sight." William spoke solemnly, curling his hands around Wilson's where it still sat on his shoulder. "That is why Wilson was in that world with me. I pulled him in to try and free myself."

"And in the end I stopped his rule and replaced it with my own." Wilson added. "He forced the Shadow to replace me, and that was when we ran."

"So in conclusion," William cleared his throat. "You are speaking with two of the Nightmare Throne's previous Kings, and you should stand down because you may know and think you know of the Throne, but you have no idea." he freed one of his hands, reaching out to take Vlad's chin and nudge his gaze up from the floor. "And I do not think I could stand seeing Wendy's son destroyed like that."

He shuffled around so that he could hold Wilson's hand still, but he wrapped his other arm around Vlad's shoulders, pulling his nephew into his side. "Out of debt to her, out of missing the only family I had, out of everything," William paused, leaning down to rest his chin on Vlad's head. "I suppose what I am trying to say is that I will not leave you alone."

Vlad's eyes slipped closed as the first shudder tore through him, his face screwing up as he tried not to outright sob. "Look at me," he hissed the words out in a vicious whisper. "Crying for the second time in the company of others. I haven't been this watery eyed for decades."

The arm around his shoulders went tight for a second, an awkward reassurance, and William drew back slowly, his lips twisted up at the corners in a small smile. "Tears are not a sign of weakness."

With a shudder, Vlad shook his head. "No?"

"Not even slightly." William frowned when Vlad muttered something to quietly to be heard clearly. "What was that?"

Pulling away from his uncle, Vlad shook his head again. "Try telling my father that." he grumbled, turning on his heel and abandoning his coffee cup on the counter. "Though I fear you will have little luck considering that the man has been dead for over thirty years." he tucked his hands into his pockets as he walked out of the room.

His pace was casual, but it was an obvious retreat.

 

X_X_X_X_X_X

 

The Fenton household was quieter these days, but not by much.

With their children mostly out of the house, Jack and Maddie dedicated days to their research and work, opting to spend hours in their lab. With a newly redesigned ghost portal and a new wealth of knowledge from their son, they had a refreshed take on the world of ghosts and spirits. Even Jack, surprisingly, had taken to talking to the ghosts that came through every now and then.

Maddie would stand back with something to keep her husband safe while he did, but it went smoothly for the most part.

Which was why, when the proximity alarm went off, both of them turned towards the machine and paused their projects. "That's odd," Maddie whispered, frowning at it the longer it blared. "Normally the ghost comes through almost immediately after the alarm goes off. I've never seen a delay, especially not like this." she took a step closer, pulling the Fenton Thermos off the side table. 

"Maddie, don't get too close." Jack studied the portal, his eyes narrowed as he watched the brilliantly green surface of the entrance ripple like water in a glass. "Something about this doesn't seem right."

Just as he reached for a device of his own, someone came crashing through the portal, a near perfect mimic of when Vlad had done so during the reign of terror that had been the Ghost King. Unlike Vlad, however, they didn't stay down once they stopped sliding across the floor. Instead they bolted upright, a look of fear plastered across their face as they inspected the bundle they had been carrying. "Seal it!" their voice came out as a hoarse growl, a hand lighting up with the same fire that Danny had showed them on several occasions. "Before that bastard comes through after me!"

Without questioning the order, Jack slammed his fist on the button to close the portal, then put his arm around his wife's waist and dragged her further back from it. "Is everything alright?"

The ghost looked up at them, red eyes murderous for just a second before they softened into something almost sad. His hair, white and flame-like, rose from his head in waves that disappeared before they got too high. "Nothing is alright." he informed them, his voice still hoarse but much more calm. "And I think I have the proof of that." he gestured at the bundle that he had been carrying, picking it up gently. "I need to find Danny Phantom."

The fabric that swaddled whatever it was that he was holding was a brilliant purple color, and when he pushed some of it aside, a small blue face was revealed.

"This," he gestured down at the ghost child. "Is Clockwork."

Tugging down the fabric some more, he revealed a shattered pane of glass in the smaller ghost's chest. "And I need help stabilizing him before he fades, because I don't want to know what happens to the timeline if he does." He stood smoothly, still holding his bundle of ghost child, then turned to the Fentons. "Is there somewhere I can set him down so that I don't risk jostling him?"

Jack nodded slowly, his eyebrows raised the entire time, then stepped closer and cleared a decently sized spot on the table he'd been working on. "Here. Maddie, go call Danny."

"Jack-" Maddie began, then cut herself off as she looked at the new arrival. "I'll ask him to come here and to not use the portal. If it's sealed against a threat, it's probably not a good idea to open it." she frowned at the metal door as she headed for the stairs. "I don't know what we can do about your..." she shook her head. "I don't know what we can do for an injured ghost."  
The larger of the two ghosts nodded. "I'm sure something will be figured out." he grumbled as he hooked his hands together in front of him. 

With Maddie gone, Jack looked at the ghost and tilted his head. "Did Danny tell you that we could help? Because we do our best, and we welcome ghosts who aren't going to destroy things, but-"

"Danny didn't tell me anything." the ghost cut off his rambling, his eyes still pinned on the small ghost wrapped in purple. "He didn't have to. I remembered where the portal was." he rocked somewhat awkwardly on his feet, as if his body was trying to collapse. Noticing it, Jack slid a chair closer, nudging the ghost down into it. 

"You've been here before?" Jack pulled another chair over. "Must have been before Danny told us about being what he is."

The ghost looked at him finally, an eyebrow arched. "What he is is a Halfa, one of three in the entire world. I've only heard about the third one from the ghost in front of me, and he's not currently up to divulging information." he cleared his throat, leaning forward to rest his forehead against the table. "And yes, I have been here before. Yes it was technically before Danny told you about his other half." he went silent for a few minutes, each slow breath from the small ghost making his fingers clench tightly. "What has Danny said about his ghost half to you?"

Jack's eyes crinkled as he smiled, a toothy grin that held enough pride to nearly qualify as a parade. "He's told us about having saved the world with the powers it gives him. He told us that our inventions always malfunctioned around him because of it, and that it's one of the best things to happen to him." he laughed, a small sound compared to his normal boom. "He doesn't like it some-days, when things are shifting a little and new powers develop, but he calls them growing pains and appreciates it when they go fully fledged."

The ghost nodded slowly, swallowing almost nervously. 

"What about you?" Jack asked, genuinely curious. "You've got to have some story for how you got here. We've talked to that Writing Ghost, and he seems pretty neat, even if he did manage to trap Danny in a story a few years ago."

Red eyes slid over to look at him, the pale green skin contrasting with them sharply. "My story?"

"Yeah!" Jack nodded enthusiastically. 

The ghost stayed silent, shrugging in a way that was barely noticeable. "I think I am going to wait until Danny is here. See what he decides to do about my arrival. The last time we met, he wasn't too pleased with me being anywhere near him, and he's probably still not going to be happy about it."

The sound of Maddie coming back down the stairs made both of them look up towards her. At first, Jack simply gave his wife a smile. It wasn't until she was on the same level as them that he realized the ghost was looking at her with something that seemed out of place for what he was. "Tell me, if you aren't going to tell me your story, what's your name?"

"Jack, honey, Danny's on his way now." she interrupted, her hand coming to rest on her husband's shoulder. "How about we leave talking to the ghost until he gets here?"

The ghost nodded, a small smile on his face as he continued watching the redheaded woman. His attention was pulled away from the couple when Clockwork shifted, the smaller ghost immediately drawing his worried gaze. Red eyes opened for a moment, looking up at the ghost before a small hand flopped onto the thickly muscled arm and they slid shut once more.

"Mom?" Danny's voice called down the stairs. "Dad?"

"Down here Danny!" Maddie called back, a hand on the back of her husband's neck. Jack was still staring at the two ghosts, a confused frown on his face as he looked between them.

They heard Danny's footsteps, and then watched in shared confusion as the larger of the two ghosts curled his shoulders up to hide his face slightly. If they hadn't known any better, they would have said that he looked embarrassed, the tilt of his body showcasing a desire to be anywhere but there in their basement.

"Mom, what-" Danny hit the bottom of the stairs and stopped dead. "You."

The ghost nodded slowly, then sighed. "Me."

"What the hell are you doing here? I thought you were locked up, I thought Clockwork said that he'd keep you locked up!" Danny transformed as if it were as simple as breathing, something he'd done a thousand times and didn't even think about anymore. "Mom, Dad, get away from him, come over here!"

"Danny, don't be silly, he's not doing anything." Maddie reassured her son, even as she cast a doubtful glance at the ghost.

"That doesn't matter, mom." Danny held up both of his hands, his eyes glowing brighter. "Just get over here, away from him. I don't want anything to happen to you guys, and he's a reminder that it might, so please just move." he gestured for his dad as well, only relaxing when both of his parents were next to him and out of what he perceived to be the danger zone. "Dan, what are you doing here?"

The ghost leaned back in his chair, finally revealing the small body on the table in front of him. "Clockwork got hurt." he said quietly, his eyes wide as he stared at the Halfa. "I didn't know where else to go. My knowledge of the Ghost Zone and it's inhabitants is stagnant, and even further than that it's based off a world that now doesn't exist. I didn't know who I could trust, and I didn't know who I could trust that would be able to help." he stayed perfectly still as Danny took a few cautious steps forward. "I didn't know what to do, and I don't want him to fade."

Danny made a face. "So you decided to bring Clockwork, injured and apparently stuck in tiny mode, to me instead of letting him die?"

"I like who I am when I'm near him." the ghost explained, beseeching eyes meeting Danny's. "I don't like who I was, and I'm afraid of what I'll become if I don't have someone to make sure I don't slip again." he glanced over at Danny's parents. "Call it Stockholm Syndrome all you want, all I know is that I'm better when I'm with him."

With a sigh, Danny dropped himself into the chair his dad had vacated. "Mom, Dad, this is Dan."

"Alright." Jack said, nodding earnestly. "Who is Dan?"

"He's a mixture of my ghost half and someone else's, from an alternate future where an explosion killed the both of you and Jazz and Sam and Tuck." Danny swallowed heavily. "Technically, he's a version of me. Technically...He is me." he made a face, looking up at his parents. "And right now he needs our help, but I don't think we have what is needed. It's not the kind of science you guys focus on, and you haven't even started to look into it yet." Danny turned back to face Dan. "I have something to say and I need you to promise that you won't freak out when I say it."

"You already stole my goatee," Dan joked weakly, a finger prodding the point of Danny's chin. "Why would I freak out?"

"Because the person who might be better suited to help is someone I'm pretty sure you're angry at." Danny admitted, leaning back once the words were out. "And I know you're smart enough to figure out who it is."

Dan puzzled over it for a second before his expression turned dark. "No."

"You need help for Clockwork, you're going to have to trust him." sighing, Danny nodded. "It's the only thing I can think of that might be able to help, he still has all this equipment left over from one of his experiments years back, even though I broke some of it. It might help to stabilize or even fix Clockwork, and it might also be the only way that anything is happening."

"He's the one who pulled me out." Dan whispered, shaking his head. "I don't want to go anywhere near him."

Danny gestured at Clockwork, "You won't be alone, I'm going too. Plus, he has an uncle now, and it seems to be making him a bit better? I guess all he needed was family and someone to care about him and his survival."

"Danny? Honey?" Maddie stepped closer. "Is there anything that we can do?"

Her son nodded and turned to look at her. "We're kind of going to need a ride to Vlad's place. When we get there, he's going to have to help us with some things, if we can convince him of it, and then you might need to talk to him."

Dan gathered Clockwork into his arms, bundling him back up in the swathe of purple fabric and nodding. "I just want you to know that I do not approve of this." he muttered as he followed the Halfa out of the room. "And that I do not think that going anywhere near Vlad Masters is a good idea, he's the one who pulled me out, and you're the one who wanted me gone." he glared at Danny, then whipped his head around when Clockwork made a noise.

"I'm not going to let him do anything to you." Danny promised. "And the only reason I wanted you gone was because it was my...If I'd been able to use my powers just a little better, I could have saved them." he shook his head. "I'm not explaining this right."

Jack bounded up the steps after them, pausing when Maddie lay a hand on his shoulder. "Jack, do you think this is the best idea?"

"Maddie, we spent years telling our son that we were going to tear him apart, and we said it to his face." Jack shook his head, leaning down to kiss her cheek gently. "If this is what he says needs to happen, I'm going to do what I can to help."

She laughed, her violet eyes closing in something that seemed to be relief. "Jack Fenton, you still sometimes manage to surprise me."

 

X_X_X_X_X_X

 

Vlad's ghost sense went off before he even got to the door to see who was on the other side and making the ceaseless pounding noise.

Closing his eyes as he threw a quick prayer for strength towards whoever might be listening, he pulled it open cautiously, one of his hands behind his back and glowing with power. On the other side of the door stood Daniel, accompanied by a ghost with white fire for hair. The two of them looked worried, and it only took a second to notice the cause of at least some of it.

He sighed as he opened the door a little further and put both of his hands in plan sight. "And to what do I owe this dubious pleasure, my boy? Come to explain things to people some more?"

"I know I should have waited till you woke up, Plasmius, but they wanted to know and I needed to say something because the silence was awkward." Danny shook his head. "You're so much like your uncle that it's kind of terrifying. He kept staring at me like you always do, except it was more confusion than angry hatred and anyways, I kind of need a bit of a favor." he rushed over the last few words, gesturing helplessly at the ghost next to him. 

"Yes, because this is a world where I will do a favor for Daniel Phantom, the boy who nearly ruined- Mmph!" his words were muffled before they could leave his mouth, the heated skin of Dan's palm laying flat across his face.

Dan's upper lip pulled back in a snarl. "Look." he hissed, eyebrows drawn down. "From when I come from, you're a crazy old man who did nothing but bemoan the loss of something he never had. You pulled Danny's ghost half out and I'm still holding a bit of a grudge against you for that because what were you thinking?" he took a deep breath, his other arm still supporting his bundle of injured Clockwork. "But right now, unless you want the entirety of the timeline to be in jeopardy, you are going to let us in and you are going to help us fix things.

"You are also going to close your portal into the Ghost Zone down for right now," he added, nodded once to punctuate the sentence. "Because I don't think I want to know what it would look like if he were to get ahold of you."

Vlad's eyebrows shot up and he took just enough of a step back to be able to talk again. "Who?"

"There's a renegade ghost running around with Clockwork's staff, and by extension, all of his powers." Dan wrapped both of his arms around Clockwork again, curling him against his broad chest. "The Observants won't be able to find him because that staff grants whoever holds it an immunity and a shield. From what I've heard, in the little trip from our tower to Danny's house, the ghost is calling himself Rewind."

For a second, Danny thought that Vlad was still going to slam the door in their faces.

He sighed, however, and stood back to let them through, spotting the Fenton family vehicle sitting in the driveway. "Did you get your parents to drive you here?"

"Yeah." Danny admitted sheepishly, scratching at the back of his head. "And I never told them that you were the other Halfa. I wanted you to be able to, which I suppose just sort of makes me telling your uncle and his spouse a little hypocritical." 

Dark blue eyes met light blue for a moment, something like understanding passing between them, and then the gaze broke. 

Dan's voice called back to them from the entrance to the lab, an irritated tone to it, "Are you coming or do I have to come back up there and drag you away? I would like to get this solved and get Clockwork back on his feet." there was a pause. "Metaphorically, anyways. Lazy bastard never actually walks anywhere."

"...Is he in love with the ghost in his arms?" Vlad asked quietly, as if trying to make sure that the ghost in question couldn't hear him.

Danny shrugged. "I don't know, but I think so." he swallowed nervously. "And there's something you're going to have to know about Dan, because it's kind of important." he started walking towards the lab, knowing that Vlad's long legs would catch him up almost immediately. 

"And what is that?"

"If we're looking at it in the most basic definition, he's kind of our kid." Danny reached up and shoved his hand into his hair, tilting his head to the side to stare at Vlad. "I mean, I- He's my ghost half and yours combined. It's the combination that really sort of ties it all together, and you, in his future, were the one to pull that part of me out."

"I was wondering about that." Vlad managed as they stepped into the lab together. Massaging the bridge of his nose, he let his shoulders relax from the tensed up position they had been held in. "I'm already this far into these things, I may as well offer to let them stay here until everything is calmed down. If he is related to me in technicality, then he is also related to my uncle."

Hesitating for a second, Danny reached out and put his hand on the older Halfa's shoulder. "I wonder how many years we could have been getting along if you had toned it down a bit and I had compromised some."

With that vague statement hanging in the air between them, Danny went over to Dan to help him settle Clockwork on the lab table. When that was done, he wandered over to the portal and sealed it against any possible intruders, looking back over his shoulder briefly to meet Vlad's eyes. Neither of them said anything, but Vlad nodded slowly, moving closer to help with what needed to be done.

"Let it never be said," he muttered as he pulled a chunk of machinery out of one of the storage spaces. "That I have done nothing for you, Daniel."

The younger Halfa smiled at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, have a little more interaction between some of my favorites.
> 
> Also, tell me the truth: Who recognized Dan before I let his name slip?


	4. They Had Lights Inside Their Eyes

William watched as his nephew looked between devices, a concerned frown on his face.

Sometimes the man looked far too much like his mother, the curve of his mouth like a mirror image of Wendy's, the same somewhat far-away gaze as he tried to think around the problem. He made a pleased noise as he wrote something down, biting the inside of his lip and worrying at it briefly. There was that same cunning that had saved their lives in the world of shadows, the brief weeks that he had spent with his niece.

Vlad worried him.

The man was desperate for affection, simply obsessed with being near someone at all times. It was a wonder that he lived alone before they had arrived, what with his constant need for attention and the voice of another to fill up the room. William frowned, wrinkling his nose slightly as he tried to ignore what that meant for him. He had thought, all those years ago when he took the Throne, that he would be able to deal with the loneliness that had overwhelmed him.

Wilson wandered across the room, sliding into the seat next to him. Without a word, he slipped their hands together, pressing gentle kisses to the knuckles of William's hand. 

Casting a curious gaze at him, William made an inquisitive noise.

"You were drawing yourself too deep into your own dark thoughts." Wilson explained, pressing the back of William's hand to his chest and wrapping his other over it as well. "It does not suit and does not stand for you to believe yourself to be trapped once more." he looked back at Vlad, one corner of his mouth tilted upwards. "Your nephew is identifiably where you were before I met you."

"It worries me." William admitted quietly, bringing his left hand up to catch Wilson's chin and stroke his thumb over the shorter man's cheekbone. They sat together in silence for a minute, watching as Danny leaned over to speak to Vlad. "I suspect, however, that the Fenton boy has his best interests in mind."

Wilson nodded, his wild hair moving with the swing of his head. "Daniel was telling me about their relationship over the years." he met William's eyes. "Did you know that they started fighting when he was fourteen? The first thing your nephew did, upon finding the only other member of his species, was frighten him away with a much too aggressive advance." he chuckled, leaning into William's hand. "Reminds me of someone else that I know, more than a little."

"Do you still hold it against me?" William held his breath as he waited for the answer. 

Wilson's eyes were loving as he looked up to meet William's, but there was something sharp behind them as well. "I do not, but if you slip back towards what you were, there will be words between us. Do you hear me, William Carter? There will be _words_."

With a chuckle, William nodded, leaning down far enough to press their noses together. "I swear to you that I will do everything in my power to stay true to the man you know." he closed his eyes, tilting his head to press their foreheads together. "I am finally happy again, the world is set mostly to rights where it concerns myself, and I have someone at my side who is unwilling to let me become a monster once more." a twinge of guilt tugged at him for a second, a string of puppeteer-like menace.

"Charlie would be proud of you." Wilson said after a moment, one of his hands untangling to rest on the back of William's neck. "You are a man that your friends and family would be proud of, you fought your way back to that."

Someone cleared their throat, causing both of them to look up. 

Danny stood there, with his hands on Dan's shoulders. "Sorry to interrupt, but I need someone to do babysitting duty because he's hovering." he patted the ghost's shoulder, grinning when Dan growled at him. "I'm sorry, but I did warn you. He'll be fine if you're not watching him for ten minutes while we run tests." his grin only grew bigger when Dan grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like 'Are you sure?'.

One last pat on Dan's shoulder and Danny was away again, welcoming his parents into the lab. 

 

X_X_X_X_X_X

 

Willow folded her legs close to her chest, bracing her elbows on her knees as she watched the commotion below.

Everyone seemingly had something to do, and it wasn't helping her mood any. Her father's lighter felt like a ten-ton weight in her pocket, one wrong step and she'd drown from the pull of it into the abyss. She'd had probably the best chances of recovering from the shadow world and here she was, completely screwing it up.

The small whimper of noise that escaped her startled her somewhat when she realized that she was the one making it.

One of the new arrivals looked up, red eyes narrowing in on her as he tilted his head. Despite the pit of misery that seemed to have taken up residence in her chest, Willow laughed when she realized that it made him look oddly like the owner of the house. There was the same jawline, the same shape to his body, somewhat thickened around the middle by a stronger set of muscles.

He cast a glance at Wilson and William, then sunk through the floor, disappearing entirely.

She rolled her eyes, turning to find another thing to catch her attention. She'd seen weirder things in the shadow world, a little disappearing act wasn't going to faze her. The red eyes that met hers when she turned, however, were enough to send her sprawling down a few steps. "Now now," came a voice that was heavily sarcastic. "Falling down the stairs, really? That's how you're going to die?"

He had a hand wrapped firmly around her arm, hauling her back upright. Willow took a deep breath, relaxing even more when his hand pulled away and let her sit on her own. "Not particularly how I want to die, but if that's how I go..." she grinned at him. "I suppose there are worse ways."

The man- Ghost? She didn't know -settled in next to her, leaning back in a way that reminded her of a cat. "There are, yes." His eyes shifted to look at the small ghost on the table that Vlad and Danny were circling back to every few minutes. "I recognize you." he spoke quietly and she almost missed the words, registering them at the last second. "You disappeared years ago, back in the nineties, and the only reason I know that is because Clockwork brought you up when you showed back up."

"What exactly is Clockwork?" Willow leaned over her knees, nearly bent double as she tried to get a reading of his emotional state from the expression on his face. 

"He's a very old ghost," he shrugged, turning his head to look at her. "And you have somewhere you could be if you wanted to be anywhere but here." He watched her for a minute, then sighed. "Are you done yet?" he called out. The tone of his voice suggested that he was saying it to be annoying, but the look on his face suggested an inquiry of a more serious nature.

Danny turned to look up the stairs, throwing his hands up into the air. "We'll be done when we're done, you're just going to have to wait, Dan!" he called back. 

'Dan' leaned back again, resting the palm of his hand on the top of Willow's head without looking at her. "Clockwork believes in information going where it goes when it goes to where it goes." he blinked, then smiled fondly. "Even has me talking a bit like him..." he shook his head, facing her again. "Your father is waiting for you. You have somewhere you could be."

"My dad's-" Willow gaped at him, her eyes wide as she tried to breathe. "He- My dad's dead."

"And the Throne holds up the deals that are made with it, even when someone breaks their end of it." Dan informed her, grinning almost evilly. "Where are you from?"

"Washburn." Willow frowned, one of her hands diving into the pocket on the front of her hoodie. "It's why my dad gave me his lighter. He trusted it to always help me survive to get back home. The winters in Washburn are kind of...Awful." her eyebrows furrowed as she turned the lighter over in her hands. "When I was younger, he'd light a lamp by the front porch with it when the night started closing in. We-" she broke off, tucking her hair behind her ear. "You probably don't care, sorry."

Dan chuckled, then stood and offered her a hand. When she was standing next to him, he started down the steps. "Come with me."

Willow frowned, then darted down the steps to catch up to him, her feet making only a little more sound than his. Warily watching as he moved across the room, she waited at the bottom of the stairs for a second, then scurried after him again when his stride didn't falter. Danny caught sight of the both of them first, pausing in what he was doing to give her a little wave. "Dan..."

"Do you know where she's from?" Dan interrupted him. 

"...No?" Vlad joined in on the conversation, a small tube of ectoplasm in his hand. 

"Willow here is from Washburn, North Dakota." Dan crossed his arms over his chest, chin tilting up. "Her father is alive, because the Throne holds up it's end of all bargains, and I am willing to bet that he's waiting for the return of his daughter."

Danny frowned, then looked at Vlad. "Tests are at a place you can take a break, frootloop." he grinned when the elder Halfa muttered something under his breath. "How come you didn't come and tell us before, Willow?" he set his pencil down, crossing from the table he was sharing with his dad. His height was such that he had to lean down a little to meet her eyes completely, and she shrugged. 

"I didn't want to be a bother."

Vlad's head fell back as he glared at a spot on the ceiling. "I am allowing you to live here, I have bought you clothing, I have made sure that you feel as comfortable as you can in your situation." he rolled his head around until he could meet her eyes. "At this point, you can either go home and find him there, or we can bring him here. Make a choice, report back to me." he turned back towards his workstation, the tube in his hand finally making it to it's destined spot. "Another option is buying technology so that you can contact him and sending the other half of whatever you choose to him with your new number programmed into it.

"Whatever you choose, make a choice." Vlad frowned, then glared back at Danny. "And now you have me talking like you."

"Careful, too much like him and you'll become me." Dan joked dryly, turning back to Willow. He led her off to the side, back to the bottom of the stairs, settling in with her again. "And now you know what it's like to have a billionaire in your life who feels the need to prove that he isn't crazy and that he isn't completely horrible."

"...That feels a bit manipulative." Willow pursed her lips, nodding slowly as she thought about it. "Which means it's probably awful that I like it."

Dan grinned at her. "I prove that there's a future where his life is even worse than it is now. I prove that it could still get worse." he chuckled again, folding his arms together over his knees as he watched the rest of the group in the room gather together and speak quietly. "I'm here partially to make sure that he doesn't stray from his new path. In the absence of Clockwork, I'm the alternate.

"And this," he continued, pitching his voice even lower as he pointed a finger at Vlad where he stood next to Danny. "Is the day that something shifts inside of him. His obsession with Maddie, oh that's only fleeting." Dan grinned at Willow, rubbing the palms of his hands on his elbows. "Well...It's as fleeting as twenty years of intense obsession can be, especially when it's paired with the stirrings of something else for someone who is definitely not Madeline Fenton." he gestured at Danny, then back to Vlad. "If you catch my drift."

"You're a little bit evil." Willow informed him sternly, crossing her arms over her chest.

The grin that was spread across his face grew just a little more indulgent as he nodded. "That is what comes from who I am, my dear." his expression sobered slightly, his flame-like hair wavering and casting odd shadows for a second. "Besides, it's hardly evil if it's the truth."

He leaned forward over his knees, shifting until his right hand was dangling in the free space in front of him. "And I would never tell a lie where it concerns them."

 

X_X_X_X_X_X

 

Vlad swiped a hand inelegantly over his forehead, wiping away the sweat in one motion.

He was already down to his shirt, his suit jacket abandoned, and his hair was pulled up in a much-higher-than usual ponytail, the end of it just barely brushing the base of his neck. Before him, Clockwork was almost motionless on the table, his small body curled into a comma shape. If he had known that it was necessary, he would have prepared something for this instance before it ever came to pass. 

From what he could tell, the destruction of the glass in Clockwork's chest had led to a reversal of the Master of Time's personal timeline, literally stranding him as the youngest version of himself. 

According to Daniel, the ghost had a cycle of faces, and he would ordinarily switch between a child, an adult, and an old man. Vlad himself had never had any experience with this sort of ghost before, had not even known that there was a mastery of time to be had. Every step he took felt like un-tread ground, the likes of which no one had ever even seen before. 

The admittance of Jack and Maddie into his lab felt off-kilter as well.

Instead of the small thrill of sharing a space with Maddie, the introduction of her into his everyday life was...Wrong. She didn't fill the spaces that he expected her to, and there was a portion of his mind that questioned why. Over the years, she and Jack had- inadvertently or otherwise -foiled so many of his schemes that it just felt overdone and drawn out; There was nothing for him to feel for her anymore. Somehow in the time since Daniel had become a Halfa and now, the pedestal he had placed her on had fallen to the ground and shattered.

It was liberating at the same time as it was painful.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, his nineteen year old self was screaming at him, boiling over with the rage and short tempered manner he recalled having back then. It had only been made worse with the addition of a ghost half and the loss of his two best friends.

"Vladdie?"

Ah. Right. Jack was in his lab, probably had been talking to him for a couple of minutes now. "Yes Jack?" A little too much venom in his voice, but it would have to do.

Jack's shoulders were rounded, his eyes were wide, and if it weren't for the fact that the man was six foot four and outweighed him by a hundred pounds, Vlad would have termed the entire scene to be reminiscent of a scolded puppy. "You know we- I mean...Now that we've got everything all cleared up, about you being a half ghost and all," Jack stalled, fumbling for his words. "Do you still blame us for something else? I mean, you keep acting like you're mad at me."

"...Hm." Vlad closed his eyes for a second, counting to five under his breath, then turned back towards his old friend. "It probably would have helped to have visited me in the hospital." he half-growled the words, feeling his nostrils flare for a second as he breathed through his nose. 

"But we did." Jack sounded confused and he didn't get to sound confused right now, there was no way in hell that he got to sound confused right now. 

"Did you?" Vlad's eyebrow arched up, his voice so dry that it could have been labeled a drought. "I recall nothing of the sort. I think I would have remembered something like that, especially since the only word I got of your lives after my accident," the word was so sharp that it was almost lethal. "Was the announcement that not only had my two best friends left me behind, but that they had gotten married. I was laid up, in a hospital bed, with no one but the hospital staff for company, and that was all I got."

The look on Jack's face slowly shifted into a frown as he wandered away, back towards his wife.

'Fine.' Vlad thought, fists clenching tightly as he watched him go. 'Seems fitting.'

Before he could go back to ignoring the rest of the inhabitants of the room, however, Jack saw fit to shove a photo album under his nose. It was labeled 'Eighty-Nine -- Ninety-four', and the cover photo was of him, Jack, and a fairly pregnant Maddie. All of them were smiling and it looked genuine, the group of them clearly having a good time.

"...What?"

Jack nodded, face still twisted into a frown. "We visited you. Look through the entire thing, it's filled to the end." he pulled up a stool next to Vlad, tucking his heels into the groove the design of the legs made. "I don't know why you don't remember, but I know we did, Vladdie. You're my best friend, how could I have forgotten you? Hospitals and the V-man don't mix, I still remember that."

Head feeling dizzy, Vlad slumped against the counter, far enough away from the injured ghost that he wouldn't get jostled. With every page he turned, another moment in time was captured, another instance of happiness that he didn't get to experience. "Who took all of these?"

"The nurses, mostly. Some of them were taken by Maddie's sister." Jack shrugged, hunching in on himself. "I don't know what happened, but I never meant to make it seem like I wanted you out of my life."

Vlad glanced up briefly, hand still flipping a page. 

"Wait, what's that?" Daniel's voice came into his range of hearing. "Vlad, does- Did the ecto-acne ever make your eyes change color?" The younger Halfa stood in front of the elder, his hand plastered over one of the pages of the book.

"Never." Vlad shook his head, then looked down at the picture he'd been forced to stop at. His face was as mangled by the ecto-acne as it had been in every other photo, but his eyes were a brilliant green color. "Jack, I must know, what did I say to you to explain that? Was there an excuse given?"

The larger man shrugged again. "I think there was something mentioned about it being a symptom, that every case- there'd only been three at the time -was a little different."

Vlad turned so that Jack could see the photo clearly. 

It showed a heavily pregnant Maddie sitting off to the side, her hands clasped together over the swell of her stomach, and an excited looking Jack perched somewhat haphazardly on the edge of the bed. Vlad himself had his arms crossed over his chest and was rolling his eyes, which were, entirely wrongly, _bright green_. "My eyes never once shifted like that, and my powers even now aren't that color. Daniel's are, but mine are more of a mag-"

"Pink." Daniel interrupted, the dawning look of understanding on his face smoothing over any irritation caused by the speaking-out-of-turn. "Your powers are pink, unless you're doing a plasma blast of a different intensity."

"Precisely." Vlad blinked a couple of times, then peered even closer at the photo. "And the me in the photo is missing a scar on the back of his hand." he held out the aforementioned hand for inspection by the two Fenton males. "It's faint, but it's a jagged 'Y' shape, I caught it in a barbed wire fence when I was younger. I still have it now, over thirty years later." he paused. "Jack, you were there with me when I got the scar."

Danny scooped the photo album out of the older Halfa's hands, trying to stall the argument that he could feel brewing. "You said that the hospital staff were the only ones to come see you."

"Yes."

Arctic blue met midnight. "Was one of them a woman with bright red hair and green eyes?" With that bomb dropped, Danny waited.

He almost denied it, almost said that she hadn't been, but the description, however basic it was, was enough to trigger the memory. He couldn't speak, couldn't say a word, but his view of the world shifted enough to tell him that he had nodded. The woman who had spoken with him the most, more often than he saw his nurses or doctors.

"I know-" Danny shook his head. "I think I know what's causing all of this, and if I run into her I swear I'm gonna beat her so far back into the Ghost Zone that she never crawls back out." he sighed, running his hand through his hair. "Her name when I dealt with her was Penelope Spectra, and she pretended to be a guidance counselor at my high school. What she really is is a nasty piece of work that feeds off of misery and self hatred."

He gestured at the photo. "She has a shape-shifting buddy named Bertrand, and part of the reason he works for her is because the feeding thing she does also helps his powers stay at a fairly high level. Without her, he'd be nothing, and he practically worships her while she treats him like crap."

"Son, is there a point?" Jack asked.

Daniel's finger jabbed at the photo. "I'm gonna guess that Vlad doesn't remember this because it was Bertrand the entire time. Vlad's powers are pink; Bertrand's are bright green."

"I- You said her name is Spectra?" Vlad could feel his jaw hanging open, and for once he didn't care that it looked undignified. Looking at the photo again, he frowned, reaching for the book. Danny handed it over, a dawning look of understanding on his face as he stared at the older Halfa. 

"Yeah." he said quietly.

Vlad nodded, his face twisted with worry and something that looked like sorrow. He clasped the photo album to his chest, then turned to Danny and flashed a fake smile, the brightness of it not reaching his eyes. "The tests are all at a place that they are safe to leave for a moment?" he waited until Daniel nodded, then turned intangible and invisible, disappearing entirely from view. 

Jack looked around wildly, trying to spot him. "Vladdie?"

"Dad, I think he needs a little time to himself." Danny put a hand on his father's arm. "How about we let him come down again when he feels ready." Despite his words, he looked up at the ceiling with a worried frown, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"I hope you're okay, frootloop." he muttered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another chapter, enjoy. 
> 
> I might not update for a few days, as my body has decided to betray me and make my entire immune system drop straight into chaos.


	5. Let The Stars Watch In Shock

The doorbell was ringing. Vlad had hidden away in his room for two days and now the doorbell was ringing and either no one heard it or they were ignoring it. 

He growled as he stood from his desk, going intangible and slipping through the floor until he reached the front door. It seemed to be in line with his first thoughts of it being unheard, because no one was in the room. Stalking over to it and wrenching it open, he was met with the confused face of a man.

The man had dark hair that was flecked with grey and silver, brown eyes switching from confusion to worry. "Are you alright?" he asked in a soft accent. 

Vlad stared at him for a moment, then nodded slowly. "I am fine." he blinked a couple of times. "You're Willow's father. Right. I bought that plane ticket because she missed you." he stepped back, his mind moving slowly as he tried to reset his connection to the world. "Do come in." he gestured for the man to come inside, still processing slowly. 

Isolation did not suit him, it seemed. 

He had only spent two days in his room, with a five minute visit from Willow when she had decided what the best method of bringing her father back into her life was. The quiet voice in the back of his mind that supplied a steady stream of self-loathing and anger was at full volume right now, and it was never a good thing to allow that to happen.

"Thank you, very much sir." Willow's father spoke quietly, then nudged the door shut behind him when it was clear that Vlad wasn't going to do so. "My name's Richard Amadeus. I know your face and name already, so that's that bit out of the way."

"Right." Vlad nodded, swallowing and then looking towards the lab. "Just a second."

Wandering off towards it, he opened the door and called down the stairs for Willow, still somewhat dazed as he stood back and waited. It was only a few seconds before the sound of feet rushing up the stairs grew loud enough to be heard, and then Willow was in the room with them. Her eyes were wide and bright when she saw her father and she ran across the room and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, clinging to him like he was a lifeline.

"Dad!"

Richard smiled, his eyes watery and half-closed as he held onto her. "Hey punkin, how's my girl?" He set his bag down, wrapping both of his arms around her and kissing the top of her head. 

Willow pulled back so that she could see his face, the smile she wore fading slightly as she took in the grey in his hair and the lines around his eyes. "I'm doing fine, if a little confused and worried. There's things happening that are weird, and I'm not even talking about the fact that I am still nineteen." she tugged at her skirt. "But Mister Masters was nice enough to buy me clothes and some other things and let me stay here until things could be figured out."

Shooting a glance at the billionaire, Richard nodded. "That's very kind of him."

"...Dad, get that tone out of your voice right now." Willow scolded, pulling back entirely and crossing her arms firmly over her chest. "He's not trying to be anything in my life, he's just tossing money at the problems that money will make go away."

"As long as he keeps his hands off of my little girl, we'll all get along fine." Richard defending, leaning down to pick up his bag again. "And I brought you something." he tugged open the zipper, then pulled out something that made Willow's entire face light up as she took it from him and tucked it under her chin. "I spotted it on your bed before I left the house and I thought it'd be a good idea to bring it with me."

"I think I'm gonna cry." Willow pinched her lips together, small tears leaking from her eyes. 

Reaching out and wrapping his arm back around her, Richard laughed. "Think you already are darlin'." he almost choked on the words, tears streaming down his face as well. "If you wanted to come home, your room is still the way you left it, besides the removal of Mister Bear here." he patted gently at the bear's head. "I mean, if you want to. I understand that you might be trying to build a life away from home."

"Dad, I'd love to head back home with you." Willow grinned up at him, then sighed. "There's something going on that I'm helping with, however, and it's kind of important to make sure that nothing about the entirety of existence goes wrong."

"...What?"

Before she could answer, Vlad went stiff as a cloud of red mist escaped from his mouth. The Halfa turned to look at the lab for a moment before he started running down the stairs, switching into his ghost-form halfway down them. Ten steps from the bottom, he jumped off and landed in a crouch on the floor, a plasma ball already forming around his hand. The ghost portal was open, a tall being with entirely yellow eyes standing in front of it.

In one hand, they had Clockwork's staff.

The metal that made up the door of the portal was half-melted, ripped away by whatever power it was that they had used to open it. Scattered across the floor were people, all of them unconscious but none of them the people that had been operating in the lab.

Off to the side was Jack, his large body forming a shield between the ghostly being and his family. Dan stood by Clockwork, keeping himself between the newcomer and his victim. 

"Well," the ghost spoke slowly, their voice sending shivers down Vlad's spine. "Look at that. Follow a trail, find Plasmius, Phantoms one and two, and the damaged little scrap of ectoplasm that is supposed to be the Master of Time." they pressed their hand to their chest, lifting their chin as their grin grew wider and malicious. "My name is Rewind, and I'll soon be taking that title for my own, thank you very much."

Dan growled warningly, his hands curling into fists. 

"Oh, shut up little mixture." Rewind hissed at him, narrowing his eyes at the other ghost. "Or I'll have to finish the job right here and now."

"The Observants-"

"Can't do anything to stop me." Rewind talked over him, waggling the staff he held in one hand. "See, Clockwork has this very particular ability to get away with things because if he really wants to, he can make it so that they won't see a thing he does until it's too late to stop him. He mostly doesn't use it, which is somewhat of a shame." his eyes narrowed, his mouth still arranged in the nightmareish grin. "It's so useful."

He gestured to the small ghost who still lay unconscious on the table he'd been on for the last three days. "Too bad he couldn't fight against me any better. It might have saved him."

Snarling and baring his own fangs, Dan charged a plasma ball around his own hand, the color of it much darker than anything Vlad had ever seen before. With an animalistic growl, he ran across the short space that separated him from Rewind, slamming his hand into the other ghost's neck and clenching it tightly.

The sound of cracking bones filled the room.

They struggled together for a few minutes, Rewind clawing one-handedly at Dan's arm and trying wildly to get the stronger ghost off of him. Refusing to be pushed away, Dan brought his other arm up, latching on with an even tighter grip and adding more power to the fray. 

The fight was short lived, however, because Rewind managed to slam Clockwork's staff in Dan's chest, knocking him back and shorting out his powers in one fell swoop. 

Dan landed on his back on the floor, several feet away.

Rewind made a noise that sounded like it was supposed to be words, the damage done to his throat rendering him unable to speak. Stepping back towards the portal, he waved the staff and escaped into it, the surface hardening into something like stone as he left.

Standing up slowly, Vlad breathed out through his nose and looked at Danny.

The younger Halfa looked back at him, then gestured to the people on the ground. "He burst in, literally made his way through the door in about a second, then dropped them all on the ground and said something about them being familiar." he took a breath, then stepped out from behind the protective reach of his father, walking over to Dan and running a hand back through his own white hair. "Dan?"

The ghost groaned, curling around his stomach and pressing his face against the floor. "We need to get that staff away from him."

"Your voice sounds different, why does your voice sound different?" Danny put a hand on his shoulder, helping him get up slowly. "What did he just do to you? Tell me everything that's going on right now, it might be important."

A soft dripping noise made Danny from as he helped Dan sit upright completely. "Dan?"

Dan's eyes were wide as he held a hand to his nose, his skin suddenly the same tone as Danny's. "I don't think we need to ask what he did to me so much as how." he spoke quietly, his eyes wide as he pulled his hand back and revealed that it was splattered in blood. His nose was bleeding, whether from some change in pressure or the attack was unclear.

Choking on his own spit, Danny nodded. "I'm going to guess that it has something to do with Clockwork's powers, because what the hell?" he pressed two fingers into the side of Dan's throat, his own eyes going even wider as he felt something that made him go even paler. 

"There's a pulse. Dan, you have a pulse."

"I have a what?" Dan frowned, nudging Danny's fingers aside and feeling it for himself. "I have a pulse and a heartbeat."

Vlad stepped closer, kneeling down next to the first of the new arrivals that he reached. "If you were apparently brought to life by his attack, then what of these people? Were they attacked in the same way?" he raised an eyebrow as he turned the man over, frowning at the glasses and the scraggly facial hair. "Daniel, you said that he said something about them being familiar. Does this man-"

"That's the GhostWriter." Danny said immediately, his eyes going wide as he whipped around to look at the others. "If it weren't for the fact that she's blonde, the woman by the portal would look exactly like Ember."

"Danny?" Maddie called out, still hanging back with her husband. "Is everything alright?"

"We're fine mom, we're just a little disturbed by something that seems to be going on here." Danny waved at the unconscious figures, then sighed. "Apparently Rewind was busy making a bunch of ghosts into humans. It kind of makes me wonder if he did the opposite in our world."

Dan cradled a hand to his nose, making a face when a fresh spurt of blood came out and slid down his mouth. "Who the hell calls them-self 'Rewind' anyways? What is he, a ghost that became obsessed with the VHS format and decided to theme himself around them? It's stupid and it makes no sense." he paused, then shrugged. "Suits him then."

"What was with you attacking him like that?" Maddie asked as she approached, crouching down next to her son and Dan where they sat on the floor. 

"...He-" Dan looked up at her, curling his shoulders down in an attempt to look smaller. "That's the ghost that attacked Clockwork, and I couldn't prevent it the first time. He was talking about doing something to him again and I didn't want to let that happen." he growled again, his eyes narrowing at a spot on the floor. "I was in a cage and I couldn't prevent it."

Maddie sighed and leaned forward, pressing a hand to his forehead and tilting him back just enough to be able to see his nose and the flow of blood that came from it. "Danny, honey, get me some tissue."

The Halfa nodded and floated up through the ceiling.

"Honestly Dan, that was extremely dangerous." Maddie scolded softly, brushing his hair out of his face and making sure that the fine white strands weren't landing in the bright red of his blood. "He could have destroyed you for all we know. He has the item that belongs to the Master of Time, we don't know what he has augmented on it or if he's done something with it that makes his personal power level go up."

"I have seen him fight before," Dan's voice was still level, the words curt and almost-polite, but his tone was starting to be predatory. "I knew what I was getting into."

"You said you watched him from a cage, Dan. You don't know what else he can do, or like I just said, what he can do now. It was dangerous and fairly stupid." she patted his cheek, then turned when Danny floated back down next to her and handed her the box of tissues he had found. "Now hold still and let me help you clean this up. From what I've heard, you probably haven't gotten any medical training when it comes to humans."

"Vlad?" Danny turned to the older Halfa, frowning at the sight of the man he was crouched down next to. When Vlad turned to look at him, bright red eyes slightly wide with shock, he shrugged. "I ran into your uncle and Wilson on my way to grab the tissues. I told them that there was an attack and that you were alright."

"Why would they care that I was alright?" Vlad scoffed, an eyebrow raised as he turned the man over, frowning as well when he noticed something. "Oh dear lord."

Danny rolled his eyes. "They care about you because you're family, Frootloop." he gestured at the unconscious man between them. "And what's the problem here, you recognize who it is? Cause I have no clue, and I was told that they would be familiar to me. If you know who it is, Rewind might have gone after people you know too."

"This appears to be Skulker." Vlad stated in a deadpan manner. 

For a moment, Danny's expression didn't change; it stayed the same mixture of exasperation and odd fondness. It took about thirty seconds for it to do anything else, and then he looked down at the unconscious man in horror. "What."

"The lines on his neck and arms that appear to be scars, the clothing, the hair on both the top of his head and his chin..." Vlad gestured at that last. "They're green. Dyed a dark green color. This is either Skulker or someone who looks exceedingly like him." he motioned at the others. "We need to identify them, now."

"Got it." Danny turned away, starting to move towards one of the others. 

There were six people in all, and once he took a good look at their faces, Danny could identify all of the first four. The last two were something of a mystery: a guy with hair in short, stiff spikes who wore spiked armor and a guy with long, dark curls who wore a tunic and leggings. Once they had gotten them all on their backs and arranged where they wouldn't be stepped on, Danny sighed. 

"Danny?" Jack finally approached, a hand still on his weapon. 

Turning to look at his dad, Danny pinched the bridge of his nose. "Rewind seems to have gone after a good portion of my past, that's all. GhostWriter wrote me into his book where I literally had to follow his plot because I pissed him off. Ember mind controlled me and about a billion other people, including Jazz." he waved at the others. "Skulker and Technus, while not my worst enemies, have been literal pains-in-my-butt since I was fourteen. They're the ones that keep coming back and making everything suck when I have a job or school the next morning."

"And the others?" Jack put a hand on his son's shoulder, trying to be comforting as his voice stayed well below his usual decibel. "Are they ones that you know too?"

"I feel like they are." Danny frowned, waving at them. "But I've either never met them or they've changed so much in the transition from ghost to human that I won't recognize them ever." he knelt down next to one of the unidentified ones, staring at the man's face. There was, if he looked closely, a faint scar coming down from one eye. His skin was a couple of shades darker than Danny's own and his hair was black and curled around his face gently. "Wait..."

Jack tilted his head. "What's up?"

The man had a galaxy of freckles on his arms, points of pigmentation that were lighter than the base shade. They continued up his neck to his face, a version of vitiligo that wasn't as severe as same cases he had seen. "I think I know who this one is." 

"Daniel?"

"Vlad, you remember Nocturne, right?"

 

X_X_X_X_X_X

 

There were bright lights and voices and the uncomfortable feeling of something hard pressed against him.

When he tried pulling on the gossamer thread of dreams that kept him connected to his Sleepwalkers, there was nothing: no reactions, no nightmares or dreams, nothing other than a blank space at the other end of the line where there should have been something. Turning his head, eyes still mostly closed as he listened carefully.

"- Will not have them in my house, Daniel!"

By the goddess Eris, look what has been wrought. If he focused, then he could recognize the voices, familiar sounds that were part of a world he generally did not visit. Someone's actual voice was not usually part of their dreams, the dreaming mind preferring to conjure up some vocal intonation that made the dreamer happy. Whoever it was, however faint the memory of them might be, he knew them.

That did not necessarily mean that he was safe.

Safety was measured by how close he was to his home, not by how familiar he found the voices that he only remembered in the way he always remembered things when he woke. His true memory of things only existed when he harvested dreams, the difference between them a mind-scattering thing.

"Vlad, shut up, I think he's awake now."

He sighed almost silently, turning on his side to roll over and sit up. When a hand landed on his arm, he nearly flinched away, his eyes opening and nearly burning when the light entered them. 

"Hey," the more familiar of the two voices sounded, a gentle hand resting on his back and helping to steady him. "Don't worry. We're only going to have a problem if your plan is to trap the entire city in their dreams again. The first time fighting you was not exactly a fun thing, and I don't think that Vlad's too keen on re-living his dreams." the hands were cool where they touched his skin, and he sagged into them, trying to reconcile his newly-physical self with what he knew to be his existence.

When he tried speaking, it was only a minute before he realized that something was wrong.

Very wrong, in fact. If the confused silence was to be believed, they hadn't understood a word of what he was saying. Ah, he thought as he scrubbed a hand through his hair. They don't know my language.

Then: Well fuck.

The stubble on his chin scraped against his hand as he finally managed to focus on the one holding him upright: It was the Phantom-Halfa, that much he did remember. The white hair and green eyes paired with the black clothing and the wonderful scent of power beyond measure.

"So I'm gonna guess that you're Nocturne, right?" Phantom asked, hands still gentle, as if he weren't going to fight this time. 

He nodded, recognizing his name in their tongue, their words used to describe him, the way he would have described himself if he'd had the power. Much like his Sleepwalkers, it seemed to have been stripped of him with the conversion from ghost to flesh. A heart beat beneath his breast once more and by all the stars in the sky it felt like a perversion of his self and his very nature.

Phantom seemed sad, but resigned, as if he'd expected this. "Is there any way you can help us identify the other guy? He came in wearing armor and I think I know him, but I don't know for sure."

He tilted his head, looking at Phantom for a moment, then nodded slowly. Phantom was not going to attack him; this seemed obvious now, a reassurance in a shifting world. He tucked his tunic close to his body, then gestured a hand in a way that he hoped would tell the boy he was ready.

"Here," Phantom hesitated, then put a hand on each of his shoulders and helped him turn. "That's him. I don't recognize him, and I'm really hoping that you do."

Oh but the unidentifiable one was lovely.

He had pointed ears, a delicate tip that stuck out smoothly, and his hair was nearly shorn, small spikes sticking up here and there at random all over his head. Phantom had been telling the truth: the man was wearing armor. It took a few minutes of careful inspection of the man's face and garb, but he realized who it was and nearly felt the heavens themselves falter.

The weather controller, one of the ghosts who had been set in control of a certain aspect of the world in the absence of their creators and their teachers. It had been argued, of course, and anyone who could remember remembered well the fury of the Observants when it was learned that the original persons to take the roles had chosen successors. It had been decided by them, as they watched the worlds form and new civilizations breathe, that there should have been an end to the power that had been granted naturally.

But they were two of the several; Surely the rest would have the good sense to stay away from the monster who had altered them?

Time, Storms, Dreams, Growth and Life, Fear, ColdDeath...They were the ones who still survived. Was it to be an extermination? Had the Observants finally decided that they were too much of a nuisance?

Phantom made a worried noise and he snapped around, eyes wide as he pushed himself away.

"Hey, hey, you're fine, look," the boy held his hands in the air, the universal symbol for surrender. "I'm not going to touch you. If it's who he is that's making everything go wrong for you, we can probably find some way to keep the two of you apart."

Separation? From the beauty that was the ghost of Storms?

_Never._

 

X_X_X_X_X_X

 

Danny dragged a hand down his face, trying to stay calm as he watched Nocturne practically cling to Vortex, his dark eyes wide and taking in every detail of the room in a way that seemed to be unnerving absolutely everyone.

It seemed that- transition to human be damned -the dream ghost was still barely mortal. His eyes were almost entirely dark, a thin ring of white just barely showing around the edges as he stared at every person he could see. His mom had lasted a whopping three minutes under the excruciatingly curious gaze of the dream harvester, and everyone else had edged away after less than a minute. 

"Alright." Dan finally spoke up, his face cleaned of blood and a small amount of bruising around one eye. 

Everyone turned to look at him. 

"I want his head on a plate." Dan announced, his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes narrowed on the ruined portal. "And I want his hands to mount on a wall."

Vlad hummed quietly, as if approving of the- What was he supposed to call Dan now? The only option that seemed to fit was his kid and that was a weird line of thought to travel down -words that were coming from Dan's mouth. Looking between the two of them, Danny sighed and dug the heel of his hand into his forehead. Of all of the people that could have met, it had to be Dan and Vlad.

If the two of them got along well, it might end up being a nightmare for the entire world.

Reaching a hand behind himself to grip the edge of the table that Clockwork was resting on, Dan shook his head. "If it so happens that someone else gets to take him down, fine. If we're going to destroy him, I want a hand in making it happen. I would prefer to strike the killing blow, but if that doesn't occur, well..." he trailed off, turning his head to actually look at the small, injured ghost.

Danny raised a hand slowly, taking a deep breath through his nose. "And if he manages to kill you because you're human right now and you decided it was a good idea to go after him?"

Instead of saying anything, Dan curled back his upper lip and growled, his free hand flexing into a clawed-shape. 

"We need to go into this with an actual plan," Danny shook his head, waving away the worried look on his parent's faces. "Mom, dad, if we're being threatened by this guy, it's not just the group of us that's in danger. He has Clockwork's staff, and by extension, his powers. If we allow him to run around without at least trying to minimize the danger, then we put everyone on this planet at risk." he frowned, then nodded. "And everyone in the Ghost Zone. He hunted down six of the biggest points of frustration in my life and made them human, and we don't know why."

"Well thought out, little badger." Vlad muttered, glancing over at the still unconscious forms of the other five, his own arms crossed over his chest. 

Grinning at him, no actual humor in the expression, Danny nodded. "Had to grow up sometime, frootloop. Seemed like thinking things through was the best way to go, and I have to admit, I got a bit of help from watching you. I think I actually learned what not to do in some cases." he turned on his heel, dropping down next to GhostWriter and shaking his shoulder gently.

Rolling his eyes, Vlad stepped close enough to put a hand on Danny's shoulder. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to figure something out." Danny replied, his voice tense, but he didn't shake off the older Halfa's hand. He waited a minute, then tried again, this time saying, "Hey, gotta wake up now." 

It took another minute, both Halfa's holding their breath as they waited, but the man's eyes did slide open, immediately slamming closed as he hissed at the brightness of the lights. "And what is it, Daniel Phantom, do you think you're doing by waking me up and making me look into a light that shines with the fury of the sun; half as radiant but just as bright?"

"Does he always talk like that? I'm having trouble remembering." Dan asked, an eyebrow rising to match the sarcasm in his voice.

GhostWriter went stiff, his shoulders squaring off as he sat up slowly and prepared to say something back. One of his hands rose, like he was going to summon his keyboard and do something horrible to the other, and then he froze.

"That's why." Danny said quietly, making a worried face. "I'm guessing you can't use any of your powers right now, and you're panicking a little." he watched as the ghost-turned-human opened his eyes again, peering through the glasses that had somehow managed to stay perched on his nose. "Do you remember what happened? Or do you need a little bit of time, because we can give you a few minutes to have a freak-out."

"I remember-" he took a breath, then another, clutching at his chest as an increasingly fearful look grew in his eyes. "I was attacked. I remember that."

"Anything else?"

"He said something about..." the man paused, making a face. "Something about those most likely to help the hero? I don't remember his exact words, but it was something like that." green eyes met green eyes and both of them frowned. "Something about those pushed into a crisis willing to ignore their instincts."

Danny nodded slowly, looking towards the others. "You guys are typically the ones who are willing to help me out when things are going wrong. I mean, when Pariah Dark- Oh shit." he turned to look at the ruined portal. "Vlad, what do you think the chances of him going after Pariah and releasing him are?" he swallowed nervously, his hands clenching uselessly in the air as he thought it over. "Not to team up with him, but to cause a distraction for us and keep us out of the way while he does what he wants to do?"

"I think that for once you're using your brain correctly and I think it is very likely." Vlad answered, his eyes pinned on the portal. "I also think it might not be safe for you to go back to your house right now. The only other constant portal is there, and most of the inhabitants of the Ghost Zone know where it is."

Standing up and turning towards Vlad, Danny paused in front of him. "I think one of us needs to go in and find the Fright Knight's sword. Don't pull it out because that releases him, but find it and bring it here."

"And make sure that if Pariah is released, that he can't access his second-in-command." Vlad finished the thought,  
GhostWriter looked between the two of them, an eyebrow raised. "And we've reached the peak of insanity. The two of you are working together with no complaints." he stood up on shaking legs, laying his hands against the wall and using it to anchor himself. "It's either the end times or it's a dream." he looked to one side and spotted Nocturne. "Scratch that last, the ghost of dreams is here and made human like myself."

"I really hate to ask you, because you need to recover and it probably isn't a good idea to over-think things right now," Danny started, ignoring his comment. "But is there anyone you can think of that might be used as a backup crew to help a power-hungry-seeming ghost?"

"...Uhm," the man's eyes went blank for a minute.

Waving it away, Danny sighed. "It's fine, don't worry about it."

"No, it's not that." GhostWriter shot back. "The ones I'm thinking of are the ones imprisoned by the Observants. There's a prison that Walker doesn't run, and the ghosts who are put on trial by the council end up there. If the one who attacked me has what I think he has, then he has an excellent chance of getting in and out without delay or even a worry. Almost no one knows where it is, however, and it's a bit of a long-shot, but..."

"If no one knows where it is," Maddie spoke up "Why do you know about it?"

He shrugged one shoulder, not meeting anyone's eyes. "Because it's where my teacher ended up." he made another face. "Didn't you wonder why there were no older ghosts, save for a select few? All of the ones you have faced have been from the last century, except for three or four of them."

"Which ones have I fought that were older?" 

"The ghost of Dreams," he held a hand up and stuck up fingers as he counted them. "The ghost of storms, the ghost of plants, there's the ghost of Ice and Snow, but no one knows where he is...They all belonged, at one point in time, to an order of beings meant to keep the world in check. My teacher was one of them, and I had to attend his trial and watch as they trapped him and made him un-remembered."

Danny raised an eyebrow, blinking. "Wait, so I know most of those by name. Nocturne, Vortex, Undergrowth...Frostbite, I think. What was your teacher's name?"

"GhostWriter." he grinned, his teeth still sharp and almost feral looking. "I took his title for my own when he was imprisoned." he gestured at himself, almost falling over from the sudden movement. "My name was Henry Walters."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry that this chapter took a little bit to get posted, but there were things that happened. 
> 
> First: I got horribly sick and couldn't move for days. I was literally falling asleep every few minutes, and standing produced dizzy.
> 
> Second: I got a book published. I worked my ass off, wrote 33,000+ words for it in six days, edited it all by myself, then got it published. I wrote a thing which can now be purchased and I hope you will consider it? 
> 
> https://www.createspace.com/5547535
> 
> It is my first book, and much like the work I have posted here, it is part of a much larger world. It is the first of a planned twenty-nine books, and I would love it if you could at least hit the little 'Like' button on that page.


	6. Piece Of The Past: Rewind The Clock

"Did you ever think that maybe the reason he's still easily irritated is because you have me keep him locked up?" Clockwork raised an eyebrow as he met the unblinking gaze of the Observants. 

The three that were speaking with him stared back, not a single one of them saying a word as they watched him. It was as if they had forgotten that he was not that easily intimidated, and he sighed, gesturing towards the other room in his tower. "As long as he is locked up, his anger will still be running rampant."

"He is lucky we have not simply decided to dispose of him." one of them spoke with a deep voice, a hand coming up to his chest as he narrowed his eye. "It does not matter how much you campaign for him, Clockwork. Our decision is final. Dan Phantom must be locked away; it is only out of respect for you that he is in your care, rather than hidden away where he would never be found." he stopped, waving his other hand around. "And he is, as ever, on _thin ice_. Goodbye, Clockwork."

The connecting portal closed, leaving Clockwork staring at the wall. 

"You-" he bit his tongue, jerking his head to one side as he relaxed his entire posture, hands clenching angrily around his staff. "The only reason he is here is not because of respect, it's because you can't trace him with me around."

"Are they done sticking their miserable faces in," came a voice from the other room. "Or am I still supposed to be stuck in this cage?"

Clockwork floated into the other room, pushing back his hood and curling up on the floor in front of the glowing prison that currently held Dan Phantom. "The first is over, but you know they almost always try again a second time." he placed a hand against the ecto-glass and sighed, watching as Dan traced his fingertips over the glass above his palm. "There is something entirely wrong in how they're approaching things, and they refuse to see it because they are still angry over the fact that I let your counter-point live."

"That is because they have their heads up their asses." Dan deadpanned, shifting his body so that he sat cross-legged on the ground, facing Clockwork. The time since he had first been captured, nearly a decade now, had been fairly good to him. His clothing had changed to something softer than his suit, a black sweater and dark pants replacing the skin-tight spandex of earlier years. 

Other than a wardrobe change, the only difference was a small scar that trailed from the outer edge of his left eyebrow to his hairline; the singular souvenir of his first and only attempt to escape from Clockwork's care.

Clockwork smiled gently, pulling his hand back and tugging his glove off with his teeth, letting it drop into his lap as he pressed his fingers through the ecto-glass, actually holding Dan's hand in his own. "Now now," he chided softly. "We're both annoyed with them, but that doesn't mean that we're allowed to insult them." 

"You're the better person here." Dan snarled quietly, shutting himself up by kissing softly at the Master of Time's palm and fingers, lingering on each knuckle. 

Chuckling as he leaned forward, Clockwork pressed his forehead against the glass, his smile growing even bigger as Dan did the same. It slipped from his face, however, when he heard something in the room behind him. "There we are." he muttered, pulling back and yanking his glove back on. "I will be back in a few minutes, and then we can see about letting you out of here. If they're done being frustrations for the day, then you can be free again."

Dan grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest as the hole in the glass sealed itself.

Pulling his hood back up, Clockwork returned to the main room, frowning when he saw someone that definitely was not an Observant. "What are you doing here?"

The ghost turned towards him, wide-eyed and unsettling. "Funny." he spoke quietly, eyes flicking towards the staff that Clockwork held. "How much you have the ability to do because of that thing, and you have never once used it in any way that might be any sort of useful." he shook his head. "That much power, that little usage...It just doesn't seem right."

He lunged forward, a bloom of power around one of his hands as he flitted through space and managed to wind up in front of the time-controller. 

Throwing himself back, Clockwork lashed out with one hand, holding the staff back and away protectively, narrowing his eyes on the ghost in front of him. "What are you doing here?" he repeated, placing himself between the two rooms of his tower. 

"It's really not any of your concern," the other ghost said, shrugging nonchalantly. "All that really matters is the fact that you are going to give me your staff." he stepped forward, disappearing for a second and reappearing behind Clockwork, his hands around the staff before the Time ghost could react. He pulled it away from him, swinging it like a bat and smashing the glass in his chest.

The ghost stepped over to Clockwork, looking down at him emotionlessly, both eyebrows raised slightly. "How pathetic are you?" he laughed, pressing a boot heel into the now-exposed gap of Clockwork's chest. "Can't even defend yourself if you can't cheat." 

"Get OFF of him!" 

The ghost looked around, one eyebrow raised in a silent question. "Oh, look. A little bug in a jar." he grinned at Dan, kicking Clockwork backwards. "What are you going to do to me? You're trapped, can't get out."

Clockwork's body flopped around, reduced to his child-form, landing against the wall with a thud.   
Inside the ecto-glass cage, Dan's eyes narrowed, the blood red of them seeming to intensify with his rage. "Don't do that." he hissed, plasma-blasts building up around his hands as he pressed them against the walls. "Don't touch him." 

"You. Can't. Do. _Anything_." the ghost sneered, looking around the room and smirking. "You're trapped, I say again. Can't do anything to help you little owner."

When Dan spoke again, his voice sounded different, like it was layering over itself as he slammed his fists against the glass. "I may not be able to do anything from in here, but you shouldn't do anything to him." He watched helplessly as the ghost wandered over to Clockwork, picking him up by the throat and shaking him. 

"Maybe I'll take him with me." He sighed, dropping Clockwork to the floor and kicking him again. "Rip him apart until he wakes up and tells me everything about what his staff can do. Maybe I'll put him on a leash and yank him around until-"

"DON'T TOUCH HIM!" Dan howled, the ghostly wail of his voice managing to shatter the glass, allowing him to lunge forward, hands surrounded by green fire. He snarled wordlessly as the other ghost leaped away, vanishing out the wall and disappearing, the end of the staff snapping off. Ready to leap if the ghost came back, Dan sat there for a few minutes, shoulders tensed and claws digging into the floor. 

Eventually, however, he turned to Clockwork, his face pulled into an expression of fear and worry as he approached the now-small, injured ghost. 

For a moment, he hovered his hands over him, afraid to touch him. 

"You don't get to fade." Dan growled, pulling the edge of Clockwork's cloak and wrapping the ghost in it. "You don't get to leave me alone."

He pulled Clockwork into his arms, brushing his hair out of his face gently. "We're going to go find my younger half and we're going to get this fixed. You don't get to-" he choked on his words, tracing a careful finger around the hole in his chest. "Not like this."

Dan got to his feet, hauling Clockwork with him as he flew as fast as he could towards the Fenton portal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's the story of Clockwork and Dan and Rewind interacting. Dan isn't too happy about it, because it means that Clockwork got hurt.
> 
> My thought is that Clockwork can fight, he's just more of a powers-based fighter. He's not really trained in fighting physically, but it has never really mattered that much because he has his staff. Without the ability to use his staff and the weird things that Rewind can do without stealing his powers, it's almost impossible for him to come out of that fight a winner.
> 
> Also? Keep track of that piece of the staff. 
> 
>  
> 
> https://www.createspace.com/5547535
> 
> It is my first book, and much like the work I have posted here, it is part of a much larger world. It is the first of a planned twenty-nine books, and I would love it if you could at least hit the little 'Like' button on that page.


	7. Tell Me You Still Know

When William went to check up on Wilson, he found the shorter man curled into a ball on their shared bed, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees and his forehead pressed against them.

Sitting down next to him, William wrapped an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close until he was pressed against his side. "Are you still- Is it still happening?" he spoke quietly, proud of the fact that his voice wasn't shaking. "Or did you need time along for now?" he paused, then started stroking soothingly at his hair, digging his fingertips in and rubbing at his scalp. 

"It's still happening." Wilson muttered, pulling his head back up and looking at William. "And I would prefer to not be alone right now."

William nodded, leaning down for a second to kiss his forehead. 

"It just doesn't make sense!" Wilson muttered, gesturing angrily. "I have all of this knowledge and I am not allowed to use it based upon some rules put into place by some unknown factor. I have not yet been allowed to see what I could do to help that ghost, and I find myself wanting." he made a helpless noise, shaking his head as he closed his eyes again, his extended hand clenching into a white-knuckled fist. "It is maddening."

"I would think so," William took the man's face in both hands, massaging gently at his temples with his thumbs. "You've taken on the visage of a madman while up here."

Laughing and leaning up into the comforting feeling of William's hands, Wilson sighed. "Have you told them why I retreated? If they are angry, I didn't mean to cause offense." he rubbed at the back of his head, letting the taller man rearrange his position until he was pressed against his front, his chin resting on William's chest and both of them lying down, William propped up by the pillows under his head. "I just felt the need to hide away, the knowledge within my mind is too much."

"I explained as much to my nephew." William soothed. "There is no anger at the thought of you having to retreat." he rubbed at the man's back, humming for a moment. "He does not do well with isolation, but he does understand the need to be alone." he sighed as well, pressing his face to the top of Wilson's head. 

"He is the one who should never be left alone." Wilson muttered. "How do you think he got to be how he is today? The bundle of nerves and oddities and almost-insanity..." he shook his head slowly, careful not to dislodge William. "Every morning that he wakes up in this house and there are others in it with him is another morning that he stays just a little more sane. His father turned harsh as he grew older, though he treated his wife well." 

His upper-lip curling back, William grumbled. "Perhaps he should have treated his son the same. Vlad is concerned with his image and how he reacts emotionally, so much so that he refuses to do anything other than seem pleased in front of others. When not that, he swings like a pendulum in the other direction, as if he has no control over it."

Wilson muttered wordlessly for a minute, then relaxed, turning his head so that his ear was over William's heart. "The damage a parent does in the effort to make their child how they wish them to be." 

"Perhaps the man should be hunted down in whatever afterlife he has achieved." William threatened quietly, his hands clenching in the fabric of Wilson's shirt. "If he felt the need to ruin his son, perhaps I should find him and tell him why it was a horrible idea." he started to say something else, his own anger taking hold on behalf of his nephew, when Wilson put a hand on his forehead and frowned. 

"Maybe the damage is done and we should focus on fixing it with the one who was damaged." Wilson said, his voice soft.

William tensed up for a moment, then relaxed entirely, his eyes sliding shut as Wilson leaned up and kissed his chin. "I do not wish to let this issue lie with the man, I will speak with him one day." he vowed, turning slowly onto his side and bringing Wilson with him, curling his arms around him and tucking his face into the smaller man's shoulder.

"I know." Wilson smiled, sliding his hand into William's hair, mussing it slightly. 

 

X_X_X_X_X_X

 

Ghosts as humans were a complicated thing.

There were a few differences between their personalities, for one thing, and the difference between Skulker-as-a-ghost and Skulker-as-a-human were unsettling. Vlad watched as the hunter watched every move Daniel made, his brown eyes focused on the Halfa's back. "Skulker." he said, getting annoyed with the potential for violence in the man's eyes. 

Skulker looked at him, then crossed his arms and turned away, a frown on his face. 

Next to him, Ember slapped his arm and rolled her eyes. "You just have to try and piss them off, don't you?" she pulled back her hand and used it to toss her hair over her shoulder. As a human, she looked to be about the same age as Willow, the same somewhat unfinished growth of a girl on the cusp of being an adult. Instead of the confidence she carried as a ghost, she was awkward when she moved, limbs too long for her own comfort and safety. 

"Don't hit me."

"Then don't be such a numbskull." she shot back, crossing her arms and jabbing her pointy elbow into his ribs. "And stop looking at the Halfa like he's your prey. It hasn't happened in ten years, it's not gonna happen now. Give it up, hunter."

"No." Skulker said stubbornly.

Vlad stepped forward, glaring at the man and catching his attention. "Skulker, she is correct. If you do not cease in your attempts to capture Daniel, things shall go very wrong for you." 

"That's another thing!" Skulker snarled, throwing his hands up. "Why do you, as a human, get to threaten me? You're human, and while that may currently be true for me, it's not always going to be." he frowned, dodging another slap from Ember as he bared his teeth at Vlad. "Who the hell are you to threaten me in the first place?"

Narrowing his eyes, Vlad leaned forward, the black rings of his transformation flashing over him, leaving him as Plasmius. "I have every right to protect the only other member of my species." he hissed. 

Skulker's jaw dropped and he leaned as far back as his chair would let him go. "Plasmius."

"Wait, you're a Halfa too?" Ember's face twisted in confusion. "How is that not all over the Ghost Zone? That'd be one of the juiciest bits of gossip, and you managed to hide it. I'd ask how long, but I don't think you'll tell me." she grinned suddenly, turning to look at Skulker again. "Plus, it's really funny to watch him try to understand what's happening. He's been bragging about working for you for the last decade, and he claims to be this big ol' hunter and he never figured it out, it seems."

Changing back and standing up straight, Vlad laced his hands together behind his back. "I have been a Halfa for more than the last two and a half decades." he smirked when Skulker's eyes went slightly wider. 

"And you never found out!" Ember sing-songed at the larger former-ghost. 

"Be silent!"

Vlad turned away from the both of them, rolling his eyes as he made his way back over to Danny and his parents, watching the three Fenton's working together on something on a table off to the side. Jack was, it seemed, actually competant now that he was informed of the world that he had been investigating since he was a young teen.

A flash of warmth against his leg made him jump, hands flailing slightly as he almost fell over.

On the floor next to where his foot had been was the hairy creature that his uncle and the other two had brought back with them from the world of shadows. If he remembered correctly, it's name was Chester, and it was meant to carry things and follow whoever held the bone that came with it. 

Kneeling down and reaching out cautiously, Vlad petted at the spot between the horns on it's head, smiling when all it did was open it's mouth and let it's tongue loll out. "You're very strange." he told it quietly, toying with the fur-like hair on it's top. At his words, Chester rolled over and waved it's stumpy legs about, exposing a stomach with small mats of fur clumping up here and there. "But you do have your charms." he whispered, rubbing gently at it's stomach. Chester made a happy noise, the short little tail that was normally hidden when the sentient trunk was upright wagging hard enough to shake it's entire body.

The tap of a shoe-heel on the floor caught his attention.

Looking up, he watched as Wilson made his way to the table that Dan stood guard over, one of his hands curled against his hip. His movements were almost stiff as he stopped in front of Dan, his loose hand nudging against his arm and pushing him off to the side. 

"Higgsbury, what are you-" Dan started, clutching at the table almost desperately as he tried to stay near Clockwork. 

Wilson looked up at him, causing him to back away and go to the other side of the table, his muscles tensing up as he grabbed hold of the table again. The smaller man leaned his head down, his curled up hand going to rest on the table next to Clockwork's head.

Everyone was watching now, and the room had gone deathly silent.

Standing up slowly, dragging Chester with him, Vlad took a step closer, intending to see what was happening. When a hand landed on his shoulder, he nearly dropped Chester, managing to hold onto the squirming creature and face whoever it was.

William shook his head, putting a finger to his lips. 

The air in the room changed almost as soon as he did, the hairs on the back of Vlad's neck standing on end and a flash of light exploding from the area of Wilson. 

"Holy shi-" Skulker's voice sounded, the crash of his chair hitting the floor echoing through the room. 

When the light cleared away and he could see again, Vlad watched as Dan lunged forward and wrapped his arms around Clockwork, snarling something as he buried his face in the ghost's shoulder. "Don't ever do that again." he growled, burying his hand in the Master of Time's hair, his shoulders shaking as a black gloved hand clutched at one of them. "You don't get to Fade, do you hear me?"

"I can assure you," Clockwork's voice was weak but at least he could speak again. "I did not enjoy it either."

Turning towards his uncle, Vlad frowned. "How on Earth did he just accomplish that?"

With a small grin, William waved towards the ghost and the human, then at Wilson. "He figured out a solution, based on the knowledge he recieved in the deal he made with me. It required the use of my powers, and then the use of another's, but we figured it out and we put the plan into action."

"What was used?" 

"The end of Clockwork's staff apparently broke off when Rewind stole it. Wilson found out about that, had the knowledge of who was needed to retrieve it, had me use my powers to contact them, then had them bring it to us." he chuckled. "And the result is what you see before you." William took a deep breath, then walked over to Wilson and pulled him back, supporting him as he guided him into a chair. "As for who was needed...I heard the name of young Daniel in his words, but I have no idea as to what else it was that he said."

"Why not?" Vlad let Chester back down to the floor, the creature running towards Wilson and plopping down on the man's feet.

"He did not speak English." William arched an eyebrow at him. "I have heard something of the language he did speak, but I do not speak it myself, and thus our communication was stifled. It is, however, one of the things that Wilson gained with his knowledge."

"Oh!" Danny stopped walking, winding up next to Vlad. "Esperanto? Big furry wolf creature?"

Wilson nodded, a hand pressing against his forehead as he cautiously look up. "He said his name was Wulf. He also mentioned that he was a friend and ally of yours, and that if you needed anything, he would be willing to help with everything he could."

Vlad made a face. "But how did he get here? The portal is damaged and the one at your house is not safe."

Danny laughed, grinning. "Wulf has these special claws, he can tear through the veil separating the human world and the Ghost Zone. He makes his own portals." he turned back to Wilson, still laughing. "Is he still here?"

"Upstairs, yes."

The younger Halfa took off, stopping only to grab his bag before going intangible and flying up through the ceiling.

Maddie looked up at the spot her son had disappeared through, sighing as she crossed her arms and shook her head. "I will never understand my own son, will I?" she asked, her voice fond. "I remember the ghost you're talking about, he caused some trouble several years ago, and when we asked, Danny mentioned something about him being relocated and safe. He never told us where, said it was for Wulf's safety."

"He's in a land of ice and snow, if my shadows are to be believed." William filled in, still fussing over Wilson. 

Henry looked over from where he sat next to Nocturne and the still-asleep Vortex. "You must mean Frostbite and his wilderness. I know of no other ghost who would have their own land made of such frozen hatred."

"Cold isn't your thing, then?" Jack laughed as he asked.

"Not as such, no." Henry shrugged. "It's hard to like something when it was a contributing factor in your death. Even if, at this time, I have a pulse..." he sighed. "I know I live on borrowed time. There is nothing permanent about this situation."

The air of the room, without Danny around to ensure cooperation between the beings in it, went stale, every word agonizingly awkward.

 

X_X_X_X_X_X

 

Slipping through the floor and landing on his feet, Danny looked around and laughed when he spotted Wulf and Frostbite looking awkward in the hallway in front of him.

"Hey guys." he greeted, slinging his bag over his shoulder. 

"Danny!" Wulf crowed joyously, his green eyes scrinching up in happiness as he bounded over and gave the Halfa a hug that cracked his spine. "Is good to see you, friend! Am sad for reasons of, but is good!"

"Your English is getting a lot better," Danny complimented, then turned to Frostbite, accepting a one armed hug from the yeti as well. "I'm gonna assume that's your influence?"

"Yes, I must admit that it is." 

"Cool. It's a good thing to teach him. I heard that he's living in your lands now?" he gestured at the werewolf-ghost, smiling. "If that's true, then I have to thank you for that as well. I don't like living in fear of the thought that Walker's gonna hunt him down again and keep him in a cage." he frowned, then spotted the look on Frostbite's face. "What's wrong?"

Frostbite sighed, his claws clacking together in a nervous tap-tap-tap motion, one after another. "There is troubling news in the Ghost Zone, Great One. Talk of ghosts being released who have no business being freed, and others who should not have been locked away in the first place."

"Like who?"

"There are many ghosts who have done wrong, Danny." Frostbite shook his head. "But there are also those who were viewed as threats by the Observants, even when there was nothing that they had done other than exist in the way they were supposed to." he pressed a fist to his chest, eyes closing as he exhaled a silent prayer to some ancient god. "Come, Great One, we shall walk as we discuss this."

He started walking down the hallway, a barely-there smile on his face as Wulf bounded after them, circling around them a couple of times. 

"What sort of ghosts got locked up?" Danny asked, a frown following the statement. "I mean, I know about GhostWriter's- Henry Walters's teacher, who was the original GhostWriter, but I don't know anyone else who would have been locked away like that."

"There are many, some of them even older than myself." Frostbite paused at the stairs, gesturing for Danny to go down them first. "I have secluded myself, as I am sure you have noticed in my choice of home. I would prefer to avoid the Observants, if it is all the same to those who would pay attention." he growled, a low noise that made the hair on the back of Danny's neck stand up on end. "They anger me in a way that not many can achieve."

"Yeah, Dan doesn't like them either." Danny scratched at the back of his head. "I thought that they were supposed to be the good guys, y'know? Making sure that the timeline plays out right."

Frostbite's teeth seemed to grow larger as he pulled his upper lip back, his entire face scrunching up in anger this time. "They have taken an oath to not interfere, but then they break it routinely, locking away those who are needed in the worlds and they excuse it as the imprisoned having done something 'wrong' when all they were doing was allowing existence to thrive!"

"...Who the hell did they lock away that you're so angry about?" the Halfa was paused in mid-step, a hand on the railing as he raised a worried eyebrow at the ghost. 

"An old friend of mine, older perhaps than me. Memory does not serve as well as it once did." Frostbite nudged Danny forward, then shifted to allow Wulf to run down the stairs ahead of them. "His name was Maelstrom, though humans sometimes referred to him as the spirits of the Wind, the Anemoi in particular."

"Anemoi, that's Greek, right?"

"It is." Frostbite nodded. "He preferred the title of Boreas, the Bringer of Winter. Humans called him 'The Devouring One', and Boreas was the personification of the North wind. They spoke of him as each one of the winds, making him into a god of sorts." he grinned, the edges of it still cold and filled with untold tales of despair and loneliness. "He was courting the original GhostWriter."

"So you knew both of them."

"And you were there when they got sentenced." Henry called up to them from the bottom of the stairs. He was standing awkwardly, like he wasn't sure how to approach them, or even speak. "It- It was the last time that anyone saw you outside of your lands for decades. It's been almost a century since you left them."

Striding down the rest of the stairs and placing a hand on top of Henry's head, Frostbite leaned down to be on eye-level with him. "You were practically their child, if I remember correctly. You learned from both of them, though your powers did not mimic Maelstrom's as they did GhostWriter's." he pressed his other hand against the man's chest. "Oh Lords of the Zone, you have a heartbeat."

"Caused by the current chaos, I am afraid." Henry said quietly. 

"As I was saying, Danny." Frostbite still held onto the ghost-made-human. "Maelstrom was locked away for causing storms in the human world, particularly tornados and other such events."

"But there's some parts of the world where that's just what's supposed to happen!" Danny objected, a disgusted scowl building the longer he thought about it. "That's considered natural weather in some places, and humans just keep re-building when it happens! It's the same thing with floods, because humans are stubborn and will just stay where they are, even with massive damage and death tolls."

"And yet." 

Henry looked between the two of them, frowning as he studied the Halfa for a second. "You're talking to him like he's familiar."

"He kind of trained me, a long while back now, when I was fourteen and my powers were expanding in crazy ways." Danny stood next to Henry now, standing just enough taller than him that he had to look down to meet his eyes. "I had to kind of find him on my own and hope that he would, because my ice core was malfunctioning and it wasn't good."

"That was when you fought Undergrowth."

Another growl brought Frostbite back into the conversation. "That overgrown daisy should know better than to attack a Halfa. There have not been many, and the last was centuries ago, but I know he was there to witness her existence."

"Okay, I'm gonna ask about that later." Danny shifted his bag on his shoulder. "Right now, I'm gonna go make a few calls, because I think that there are some people who might be good to have here."

"Such as?" Frostbite turned to look at him.

"Some friends of mine, and you know two of them, with the third having the option of coming to see you if she needs to." Danny dug his phone out of his bag, having turned his hand intangible and reached into it while it sat on his back. "In other words, two humans and the other Halfa."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope people like this! I'm having fun writing this story, and there's some exciting things coming.
> 
>  
> 
> I wrote a thing which can now be purchased and I hope you will consider it?
> 
> https://www.createspace.com/5547535
> 
> It is my first book, and much like the work I have posted here, it is part of a much larger world. It is the first of a planned twenty-nine books, and I would love it if you could at least hit the little 'Like' button on that page.


	8. Could It Be

The Lands of the Imprisoned were eerily silent as Rewind approached, as if the inhabitants were staying silent in hopes of going unnoticed.

With every crystal prison that he passed, his grin grew larger, an Observant's key in hand as the ruined end of Clockwork's staff dragged along. Some of the prison cells were small, the ghosts inside merely children-shaped, the power suppression in effect drawing on their cores until there was nothing but the bare minimum left behind. Few of them were any larger than Rewind himself stood tall, the ghost's height of just over six feet tall seeming enormous amongst the imprisoned.

He dropped down next to one that held an impressive looking ghost with a series of scars across his face, like claw marks from a gigantic cat with a temper. The armor the captured ghost wore looked nearly identical to Vortex's, save for the symbol on the front and the cape that draped down behind him.

Rewind cackled as he reached out and opened the door to the ghost's prison. "Maelstrom, time to wake up." he hissed, catching the old ghost in his arms when he slumped out of his capsule. Before Maelstrom could so much as move, Rewind pressed something to his head, a device that looked similar to the one that Vlad Masters had once used to try and control Vortex. A glow surrounded them and Rewind stepped away, reaching for another cell as the weather ghost twitched, mouth open in a silent scream. 

The next cell over held a slender male form, ghostly pale skin topped with a mop of dark brown hair.  
From seemingly nowhere, Rewind pulled out a thick, leather-bound book with gold on the edge of every page, a silver quill tucked into the middle of it. Leaving it floating in the air as he opened the cell, he repeated what he had done to Maelstrom.

"Let's see, let's think..." he hummed as he wandered through the free-floating crystal prisons. 

Coming up to one that held a red-haired ghost, his grin stretched wide. "I don't even have to control you if I let you out!" he pressed his hands against the door, then opened it and helped her out, settling her down next to her previous entrapment. "You're Penelope Spectra, I'm so glad to be able to meet you."

Her bright green eyes were wide as she looked up at him, studying his face. "Why did you pull me out?"

"Because," Rewind crouched down so that he could be on the same level as him. "I know who did this to you, and I'd like to help you get your revenge on every last person who ever fought against you." he reached out to tilt her chin up again, an almost loving graze of his hand against her jaw. "Danny Phantom, the little brat who kept you from reaching your absolute best."

"...What's your name?" she held out a hand.

He nodded in approval and took it in his own. "I'm called Rewind, and I need your help to take down those who have damaged me as well." he bent his head to press a kiss to the back of her hand. "Charmed and pleased to meet you at last."

"I'd say the same." Spectra purred, allowing him to help her stand. 

Rewind floated over to another capsule, opening it and doing the same thing he had been doing. "Some of these ghosts aren't like us decent ones, they would prefer to help the Halfas and shun their own." he scowled at the face of a female ghost who had a deep scar pattern around her neck. As he pressed the device to her head, his scowl shifted back into a grin. "Kerrickson here was a detective and seems to want to hold that job as a ghost."

"I remember her." Spectra floated to his side, pulling off her suit jacket and watching as it dissolved into ectoplasm, only to reform into a vest that she pulled back on. "She stopped a murderer, and if I remember correctly..." she slid a finger across her own neck, mimicking the act of violence that had brought Kerrickson to the Ghost Zone. "She did herself in afterwards. Of course, I might have had something to do with that." she smirked as the ghost slumped into Rewind's waiting arms.

Letting the former detective fall, Rewind looked around. "Oh, so many choices I could make."

He floated over to another one, pressing his free hand to the front of it and almost vibrating with excitement. "If I choose correctly, then they'll all understand that they should never have gone against me."

"Who?" Spectra asked, running her fingers through her hair and rearranging it into an elegant updo, a small patch of curls left behind to frame her face. 

Rewind pressed his hand against the prison cell even harder, grinning at the gently glowing blue face of someone who looked an awful lot like Clockwork. "Oh," he chuckled, hand moving to press over the sleeping ghost's neck through the barrier. 

"No one in particular."

 

~

 

The dream starts out the same way, every single time.

Running through the forests of the Ghost Zone, trees lashing against your skin and the faces of startled ghosts who are fleeing as you pass them, the interfering claws of the Observants practically scraping down the back of your neck. 

(You're almost grateful for the dreams, thankful that there is still something to hold onto in the state you're in.)

They've not got him yet, and you're running towards the place you always told him to meet you- Never lead them directly to his home, to the place that he calls his own, because they would take him in and they would take his apprentice and you are much too fond of the both of them to allow that to happen. Lightning bursts from your fingers as you try your best to escape, calling upon the superstitions of the humans and wishing that you actually were the Wind that they thought you to be. 

(There's a cold touch at the edge of your consciousness, something that feels invasive and wrong and you can't fight against it.)

It feels like an ice storm has begun inside of your chest as you reach the clearing and find them already there, your lovely writer on the ground. They've got him separated from his book and his pen, his long fingers still and ink-stained where they're dug into the ground, like he was trying to crawl away.

Fury rises inside of you like nothing you've ever felt before, not even during the stormy seasons of years past in the human world. 

You've killed humans before, it is in your very nature and it is a part of who you were created to be, and the fury washes over you. It washes over you and drowns you in the depths of it as you stare at what they've done to him, what they are still doing to him by keeping him apart from what makes him who he is. The sky overhead is splitting apart, your rage crackling across the brilliantly green and striking the ground at their feet. 

(The cold touch whispers to you, almost as if it's asking you to take revenge on those who did this to you.)

Hiding in the trees in the willowy form of his apprentice, the round glasses that soften his cheeks doing almost nothing to hide the fear in his just-as-bright green eyes. In between the flashes of light and the roar of the thunder, you motion for him to run, almost chase him away from his teacher. 

They have no right taking the two of you, but they will not get your students. 

You just hope that Vortex has the good sense to stay away, to pull together what he needs from your home and run as far as he can so that they can't find him too. 

Something attaches to your back, drags you down and starts sapping away your strength, each bolt growing weaker and weaker until you can't create them at all, not even a breath of wind to save you now. The only sign that it's still a dream and not just a memory is that now, unlike when this actually happened, your writer is staring up at you, soft red eyes accusing and hateful. You can't hear what he says but you know that he's blaming you, every word falling from his lips twisting his bruised face into an even deeper anger.

This is all your fault.

( _'Take my hand,'_ a voice whispers, adding itself to your dreams and pulling your attention. You can feel yourself waking up. _'And you'll never have to hear him angry at you again.'_ )

A new figure appears in front of you, stepping around the prone form of your love and holding out a hand. In his other he holds the staff that you know belongs to the apprentice of the original Master of Time, but you can't bring yourself to care anymore. You take his hand in yours, feel the choke of claws around your neck as you wake up.

He stands there, in front of you in the waking world, and your dream slips away faster than water through loose fingers. 

Rewind, you think to yourself as you bow to him. His name is Rewind and that is all you know, every last inch of you rewritten to only know serving him. There are other ghosts near you, some tugging at your mind in a way that hurts.

You ignore that, ignore everything besides the orders that your new Master gives you. His whispers are promises, each one to be fulfilled in time.

For the first time in something like a century, you're going to go to the human world.

 

~

 

Rewind sneered as he watched Maelstrom move stiffly, his legs dissolving into a tail that seemed easier to hold together than it   
should be.

Nearly a hundred years in captivity and he still has enough power to serve, he thinks as he watches the others that he has freed and returned their powers to. The writer is blankfaced as he handed back his book and quill, red eyes hollow and unfocused. 

"How exactly are his powers different from the other GhostWriter's?" Spectra asked as she inspected her nails. 

"His are more about creating something out of nothingness." Rewind leaned back, using his stolen staff as a balance. "Henry Walters is all about making others go along with what he writes, dictating their actions with the words that he puts down on his pages, and if I could have found a way to control him as well, I would have." he pushed a hand back through his short hair, a fruitless effort to keep it out of his face.

He gestured at the original GhostWriter. "His words bring things into existence. If he writes that someone has wings and horns and a tail, they shall henceforth have them. If he writes that they've had them their entire life, their memories and the memories of those around them change accordingly." he grinned when she bit her lip and nodded, an obviously scheming look on her face. "If he wrote that Daniel Phantom willingly gave you everything you wanted, the boy would have no choice but to obey."

Spectra laughed, a cruel sound that echoed around those that had been freed and promptly controlled. "And you've never taken advantage of this...Why?"

"Because he was trapped here and I didn't have the necessary tools to free him and control him." Rewind patted at the wrong pocket, the one that didn't hold the Observants' key. Spectra wasn't one to be trusted easily, especially not with what she had done to the Halfas and the ghost boy that haunted the high school. "He has these powers, which are dreadfully unfair, and he doesn't use them except for good. If he didn't have personal rules and laws in place about the natural order of things, he'd probably use them to save the entirety of the human world with no recognition of what he'd done."

"Stupid." Spectra snarled at the ghost's retreating form.

Rewind tapped the face of the clock that topped the staff, watching with pleasure as the wood warped and turned black under his touch. The hands of the clock shifted into skulls, another pushing it's way out of the wood and opening it's jaw in a silent scream as it came to rest at the bottom of the clock. "I know."

"Your powers are obviously connected to time," Spectra observed as she pulled together the finishing touches on her new outfit. "So why weren't you the Master of Time in the first place? I could have sworn the guy was just a rumor anyways, a story that gets passed along but never has any truth to it."

He clenched his hands in a throttling grip around the staff. "There were disagreements and arguments and I was not chosen." he hissed. "And it is none of your business."

 

~

 

"You stand before me and dare tell me that what you have done is the best possible option?" came the soft voice of his teacher, the one who had taken him under his wing and trained him in their shared sort of power.

Rewind's chin tucked further into his chest, as if he could avoid the older ghost's gaze by never looking up again. "Yes sir." he whispered, not moving at all. In the all-seeing mirror that his teacher had on the wall was a scene of destruction, an entire village laid to waste and the corpses of the dead laid out in neat rows. There were tears, blood splattered faces of the few who had survived staring emptily into the chaos that had once been their home. 

"You were told to watch over them, to prevent this from passing." his teacher's voice went even softer, the whisper angrier than any yelling that could have come from him. "Instead you have chosen to guide those who were against this village."

"Yes." Rewind raised his head, narrowing his eyes on his teacher's face. "And what of it? They were the better offer, the more likely to survive."

"That was not the point." 

A hiss escaped his mouth, his fists clenching on nothing as his glare intensified. "What was the point then? To show that you're a pompous windbag? Point very well taken, Sir. Perhaps you should have sent Clockwork on this particular bit of busy work if you wanted the softer route taken." his hands started shaking when he heard the involuntary gasp his fellow student let out, the stunned confusion. 

His teacher nodded. "Perhaps I should have, if you are so immature as to think that you are more knowledgeable about these things than I." the older ghost sighed. "You are not ready, not nearly."

"I'm more ready than him!" Rewind snarled, his voice finally loud enough to echo in the room. He flung a hand towards Clockwork, nearly slapping the other in the face as he gestured. "I did what was right, the ones who conquered are the ones who will be able to write down the history of the land and the history of the tribes!"

"In doing so," his teacher began, shaking his head. "You have erased the true heritage of those they have conquered. The winner of the battle writes the history book, and all that will be written now will be lies and slander. It will take centuries for this mistake to be corrected, and there will be errors all the way through, especially when it comes to understanding the society. The groups that were slaughtered were peaceful, and they would have struck up a bargain with a neighboring village." he sighed, his anger giving way to sadness. "And you chose to support the marauders and murderers."

Rewind's spine stiffened as he watched his teacher float over to Clockwork, the younger apprentice looking up with wide eyes.

"It is for these reasons that I choose Clockwork as my heir, as the one who will replace me when it is my time to Fade." the old ghost pulled back his hood, revealing a shock of white hair, a black scar down his face in the shape of a twisted clock-hand. "He is simply not ready, may never be ready." he addressed Clockwork.

"I understand." Clockwork bowed his head again, the gear-shaped necklace that their teacher had given to both of them clattering gently against the metal pin that kept his cloak over his shoulders.

"For this reason, among others, I have chosen you." 

Clockwork nodded, frowning as he watched Rewind glare at him from the corner of his eye. The other ghost was floating off the floor of their tower, his hands curled into fists and his eyes going darker with every passing second. His long black hair, loose curls that normally fell around his shoulders, floated around his head, each strand tinted with the same blue-green that blossomed around his hands. 

His own hair falling into his eyes and obscuring his vision, Clockwork finally looked away. "I accept." he murmured.

Their teacher reached down and nudged his face upwards again. "I had hoped you would." he smiled, then turned to face Rewind once more. "I had also hoped that this particular exercise would be the thing to calm him down, no matter how well I knew what would come of it." his staff held loosely in his hand, he turned to the all-seeing mirror. The people it still showed were putting together bags now, gathering together what little they could salvage in preparation to move.

All in all, there were only seven survivors.

"I'd had hope." he whispered again, watching as their timeline spread out before him. 

 

~

 

Clockwork curled a hand around the broken-off piece of his staff, now wrapped in wire and fashioned into a necklace by the skilled hands of the eldest Fenton woman, a contemplative look on his face as he watched the goings-on in the room around him.

"In the ten years that I have known you," Dan's voice broke into his thoughts. "I don't think I've ever seen you so still. Quiet, definitely, but still? You're always moving, always thinking, always watching." he sat down next to the ghost, flailing slightly as his balance shifted and he couldn't automatically fix it. "The GhostWriter is worried about you, wanted to know if you were alright and if there was anything he could do to help."

A small smile twisting his lips, Clockwork reached out and steadied him. "It sounds as if he is truly concerned for my well-being then. Perhaps he could come over and speak with me himself if that is the case?"

"...Don't make me say it." Dan shook his head, shifting around until his hand was tangled in Clockwork's. "Please don't make me say it, there's enough going on and there's enough uncertainty without you making me say that it's not him that's mainly concerned. I can't- I wouldn't be able to withstand it if I lost you, there's not enough of me that's whole and strong enough to live through losing you."

Tugging the man closer, Clockwork pressed his chin to the top of Dan's head. 

He was solid and warm, and for the first time, it felt odd to hold onto him like this. Their relationship was comfort and stability, trying to unite the two cores that quarrelled at all times within him. The mixture of the two ghost halves that had created him was volatile, the two that he was born from at times the worst enemies of each other.

However much they fought, it seemed, a decade was enough time to put them to rest.

"I'm not making you say anything." Clockwork muttered, bringing his hand up to rest in Dan's hair. It was down now, having been combed out and taken care of once Clockwork had woken up and admonished him for letting it remain tangled and wrecked. "You've said plenty on your own."

Dan shifted again, until he was on his knees in front of the ghost, his chin pressed against his chest and his eyes focused on his face. What had once been red was now a deep shade of blue, his hair still light colored but now silver instead of white. Paired with the pale skin that resembled Vlad's, he looked fragile for the first time ever. His hands fisted in Clockwork's cloak, he grumbled something, his entire body rumbling in response. 

"What was that?"

"I said," Dan pulled back, allowing for some space between them. "Do you know the bastard responsible for this?"

"His name is Rewind, we all know that." 

"Yes, but I think I've seen him somewhere before, and I can't figure out why." pulling on the ends of his hair, Dan frowned. "It's going to bother me until I remember where I've seen him before. And it's not quite matching up, so it's going to-" he sat upright, his eyes wide. "Oh."

Clockwork tilted his head. "Oh?"

"You're not connected to all your normal things," Dan gestured in a way that encompassed the entirety of the ghost. "So you don't have access to your timelines and the watching of them. I remember you showing me something that happened once, when I asked you why you were the Master of Time, not someone else."

"Back when you first started actually trusting me." the ghost raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"You and your teacher were talking, he'd decided to make you his heir when he finally slipped away." Dan dug both of his hands into his hair, eyes closed tightly as he focused on the memory. "Being out of the tower makes it harder to remember, but there was another ghost in the room, and when I asked about him you said that he was the second apprentice."

"...His name was different back then." Clockwork's eyes widened as he thought about it as well, his thoughts still somewhat scrambled. "His powers felt different and he has changed his looks and-"

"I distracted you."

Both of the ghost's eyebrows shot up, his hand immediately catching on the sleeve of Dan's sweater. "Do not say that."

"Oh hell, both you and your fathers' wear guilt like a cape and a crown." William's voice called out to them, the man himself standing a short ways away with his arms crossed over his chest. Their attention on him now, he stepped closer, crouching down to put a hand on Dan's shoulder. "I think what he means to say is that he would have defended you anyways."

"That is true." Clockwork nodded, still holding onto Dan. 

"As for why I'm saying this instead of letting these things run their natural course..." William gestured over to where Wilson was sitting on top of a table, his eyes covered by his hands as his mouth moved continuously, a small recording device balanced on his knee. "There is much information being given, and some of it pertains to what is being done. The villain's name was mentioned, and Wilson said something about him releasing those who were imprisoned."

Before either of them could respond to that, Danny came running back down the stairs, a girl that looked an obscene amount like him just one step behind.

Screeching to a halt in front of Vlad, Danny started explaining something quietly, his voice too soft for anyone outside the circle of the three of them to hear, but his face quite telling. His hands were moving rapidly, as if he could use them to press extra words into sentences that were already rushed. The girl watched all of this, her nose raised into the air as she narrowed her eyes on the older of the two Halfas. 

Vlad looked like he was going to be sick, but he nodded and gestured towards the equipment. His body language spoke of defeat and worry, his shoulders tensed as he glanced towards his uncle, eyes dropping down to linger on Dan for a second.

"What is going on here?" Dan muttered, his guilt all but forgotten as he watched the exchange take place. 

Danny headed for the computers but the girl headed for the Fenton's, a bag slung over one shoulder and a bike helmet attached to it. Once in front of Maddie, she stuck her hand out and grinned, a nervous glint in her eyes as she said something. Of the two of them, Jack reacted first, pulling her into a back cracking hug that Dan could practically feel from across the room.

Standing slowly and letting a hand rest in Clockwork's hair for a second, Dan frowned. "I'll be right back." he excused himself, heading for where Danny stood.

Once he got there, he leaned against the table, his hands clutching the edge tightly as he looked at the Halfa. "Who exactly is she?" he asked, keeping his voice quiet. "And why is your father hugging her like that?"

"That's Dani." Danny paused, then frowned. "Well, now that she's older she prefers Danielle. She started out as a clone of me, but the first version of her failed and then Vlad tried again and created her. Based on where things were in the timeline, she's technically only about ten years old, but her scans and ageing things mark her as twenty-two." he paused again, his hands going still as he turned to face Dan. "Which is about the same age that you are."

Dan nodded slowly, relaxing slightly. "She's the third Halfa. Clockwork told me a little about her, but not very many specifics."  
"Yeah."

"Why did the first version of her fail?" he asked quietly, looking back over at her and watching as Maddie hugged her. "What changed between the two?"

"...In the second version, Vlad spliced in some of his own DNA." Danny looked away for a second, his eyes focusing on the elder. "Technically he and I have two kids together, if we count you. The first version of her lasted about three days before melting down, and she has lasted a little less than a decade."

Rubbing at the bridge of his nose, Dan shook his head. "How in the hell do you have two kids with the man you hate so much? How did the world arrange for that?"

"You're the one living with the Master of Time." Danny grinned. "You tell me."

They sat in silence for a few minutes as Danny printed something out, clicking around the interface of the device until he seemed satisfied with what was on the screen. Watching as he worked, Dan scratched at the growth of hair on his chin, his frown growing deeper with every second that passed. Eventually the question he was turning over in his brain slipped out, making Danny freeze.

"How many clones did Vlad make of you before he got something that close to the original?"

Danny took a deep breath, his shoulders just as tense as Dan's had been, his hands now laying flat on the tabletop. "He made six clones. That's including her." he shook his head, then frowned. "Seven. He made seven, there was one that melted before he even got to take his first breath."

"You count them as their own people and not objects." Dan leaned closer to the Halfa, prodding at his shoulder. "And from what your parents told me, you consider your ghost half a good thing."

"Of course I count them as people." Danny snapped, his hands clenching back into fists. "It's one of the reasons I'm still angry with Vlad sometimes. I don't know if his perspective on them is any different than it was when he made them, but he didn't consider them as anything other than useless imperfections."

Stepping back from the other, Dan frowned, turning to look at Vlad. His expression shifted as he watched the older male, his own fists curled tightly at his sides. "Really." he spat the word out, his entire posture shifting as he turned on his heel. Before Danny could stop him, he marched across the room, pulling back an arm and punching Vlad hard enough to send him sprawling on the floor. "You SON OF A BITCH!" he snarled, wobbling in place for a second as he fought to regain his balance.

Vlad cradled his cheek, working his jaw as he stared up at the man, then turned his head to the side and spat out a bloody gob of saliva. "You might not want to say that in front of my uncle." 

"I don't _fucking care!_ " Dan screeched, waving a hand at Danielle. "You created several living beings and you treated them like- like they weren't alive, or any sort of person! You sick, selfish, insane-" he tugged at his own hair, a wordless growl escaping him. "You idiotic old man! Did you ever think about what that might do to them?" 

Pushing himself upright, leaning back on one arm as he rubbed at his jaw again, Vlad shrugged. "What I've done is what I've done." he said, his voice quiet and his words defeated. "Any change of heart that I may or may not have had is irrelevant and unnecessary to opinions you might have of me." he dragged himself back to his feet, looking up just long enough to meet Danielle's eyes. "Regret is not for those who do not get a second chance." he muttered as he headed for the stairs.

Still breathing heavily, Dan watched him go with wariness in his eyes.

It was only when a hand landed on his shoulder that he looked away, entire body tensing as he turned to see who it was. He came face to fingers with Danielle as she held out a hand, a small smile on her face. "I've heard about you before." she said. "I've heard that you were kind of evil and awful, and that you tried to kill everyone that Danny knew."

"Mostly he was just angry." Danny added in as he walked past them, towards the stairs as he followed Vlad out of the room.

"Anyways..." Danielle chewed on her lip for a second, her other hand fiddling with her ponytail. Her face looked more like Vlad than Danny in some places, the bridge of her nose too straight and the blue of her eyes too light to be the younger Halfa's color. "I can choose to ignore one or both of my parents, but I'd kind of like to get to know my brother. So how about we start with, 'Hi I'm Danielle Fenton and or Masters and my ghost half's name is Switchup' and move on from there?"

"...Switchup?" he took her hand in his own, shaking it once, twice, then letting go.

"I liked the name, it reminds me a bit of some things I left in Amity when I moved away, and it sounds kind of cool." she grinned. "You?"

"Dan, and I'm normally a ghost." 

Danielle nodded, staring at him for a minute before reaching out again and hugging him, ignoring the half-flail that he did as he tried to figure out what was going on. "I'm glad you survived." she said honestly, pulling back to meet his eyes again. "I think I'm gonna like having a brother."

He felt something bloom in his chest, something that felt suspiciously warm and fluttering, like a bird in a cage. "I think I will like having a sister." he replied, hope rooting itself so deep that he would never be rid of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Vlad, no. 
> 
> I really hope y'all enjoy this story, there's a couple of twists coming up and I'm having so much fun writing it.
> 
>  
> 
> I wrote a thing which can now be purchased and I hope you will consider it?
> 
> https://www.createspace.com/5547535
> 
> It is my first book, and much like the work I have posted here, it is part of a much larger world. It is the first of a planned twenty-nine books, and I would love it if you could at least hit the little 'Like' button on that page.


	9. To Taste The Blame

"You've called yourself a hero for years now, you call yourself good." Rewind swung his stolen staff around, the sharply broken end coming to rest against Danny's neck, the insane ghost pressing it even closer and grinning when blood welled up on the surface of the young man's skin. "And yet here you are, unable to face someone like me, unable to make it so that I can't do what I need to do.

He jabbed the staff harder, slicing a cut into the side of Danny's throat, cackling when it started bleeding heavily. 

"DANNY!" Maddie screamed from where she was trapped under the unconscious body of her husband. As if she could do anything, she reached for her son, fear in her eyes that hadn't been seen since the day he'd told her who he was, how he'd tried to protect the world while living with parents that had threatened to kill him. Across the ground from her, Dan wrapped an arm around Clockwork, trying to steady him as the ring of sickly blue-green tightened around his throat and choked him.

Vlad choked on the smoke that was wafting in on the wind from Maelstrom's storm, one hand landing on Danielle's shoulder, reaching up to check her pulse. Still tensed up and shifting to avoid any of the attacks that were going on, he nodded when he felt one jumping in her throat.

He brushed her hair out of the bloody scrape that marred her cheek, wincing at the swelling bruise around her right eye. The same glow that trapped Clockwork had the ghost halves of the three Halfas trapped as well: Plasmius, Phantom and Switchup all unconscious as they floated in the poisonous bubble of Rewind's anger. The raw feeling of having been pulled apart still tugged at his insides, matched only by how furious he felt at the sight of Daniel made helpless at the end of something that normally belonged to a friendly.

The group of them were walled in on all sides, the creative power of the original GhostWriter having trapped them in such a way as to be vulnerable to Rewind. With the army that the ghost had created fending off any help that might come their way and their strength sapped almost to uselessness, it seemed as if nothing was going to help them.

He watched Danielle breathe, each one seeming to take an eternity as he tried to figure out what to do.

 

**Thirty-two hours earlier:**

 

"Vlad." Danny called out as he reached the top of the stairs, clutching his printed out papers in his hands. 

The older Halfa stopped in his tracks, a hand still cradling his jaw as he refused to turn around. "Daniel, you should go back down and see to Danielle and what she needs while she's here." he said quietly, his shoulders tensed. "She is your guest in this house, and it would be good for her to be as comfortable as she can be while she is here."

Danny shook his head, walking closer and dropping the papers on the table off to the side. "She agreed to be here."

"I can tell that she hates it here." Vlad responded, turning away when Danny came close enough to see his face. "And while it irks me, I very much do not blame her. She and the others were created during a time when I was not at my best. I do wish that I could patch things up, but they are long gone and far away."

"She doesn't hate it here so much as she hates the fact that you treated her like that." rolling his eyes, Danny put a hand on Vlad's shoulder, only to startle backwards when the older Halfa shook it off and practically leaped away from him. "Are you alright? I was just trying to get your attention and make sure that Dan didn't hit you too hard." he trailed off as he circled around Vlad, his eyes going wide when he saw his face.

There was some bruising, a fist-shaped mark that darkened the older man's normally pale skin, but that wasn't what had Danny gaping at him.

The cause of the jaw drop and the wide eyes was the fact that the man looked hardly any older than him, only a few lines of age here and there on his face. Vlad winced when Danny didn't say anything, choosing instead to spread his hands over everything and hide as much as he could. They stood silently for a minute or two before Danny cleared his throat and gestured at Vlad, trying to form sentences.

"You're supposed to be the same age as my parents." was what came out first, the younger Halfa's face relaxing the longer he stared.

"Yes, and I would be showing my age particularly well if I had not just suffered trauma to my face or been turned into a Halfa in the first place." Vlad's voice was thick with defensive anger, muffled by his hands, as if he were still trying to cling to his decades old grudge against Jack. "This is what happened to me Daniel, any other questions?"

Danny wrapped both of his hands around Vlad's wrists, pulling them away from his face. "Have you figured out exactly why you stopped ageing?"

"...Not as such, no." Vlad started hesitantly, allowing his hands to be pulled away. "As close as I could figure, there were parts of my genetic code that were shifting so rapidly between living and dead that they weren't able to age anymore. My theory is that they're reviving and dying in the exact same state they were in when I was in college." he paused, then nodded. "And I truthfuly have aged since then, but it measures in at around twenty-seven years old."

"So you're twenty-seven while the people who were born around the same time as you are in their mid-fourties." Danny put it plainly, wonder in his voice as he traced a hand through the air over Vlad's face. "You're three years older than me because of the accident."

"Daniel..." Vlad pulled away from him, shaking his head. 

"Don't you dare say it wasn't an accident." the younger Halfa's voice had a quiet warning in it, his hands drawing back as he sighed. "I want to talk to you, and now this makes that even more important, but I think we might need some time alone if we're going to talk. Read the things I brought up with me, go sit in the kitchen while I get some of the others to be out of the house." he stepped away, grabbing the papers and handing them to Vlad.

Vlad, face twisted with confusion, turned to watch Danny leave the room again. "How are you going to achieve such a thing?"

"I'm going to start with having Danielle take Henry to the library. I'm probably going to try and convince my parents to take Ember and Skulker out to the mall and see what happens. I don't really know, and knowing what they're going to do with their time is not really high on my list of priorities." Danny hit the top of the stairs, rushing down them with silent steps.

Clenching the papers to his chest, Vlad watched after him for a minute. "Good luck, little badger." he whispered, the old nickname he'd coined for the boy slipping out almost automatically.

 

Now:

 

Vlad took a pained breath, clamping a hand over the bloody spot that was forming on his hip with every move that he made.

With an insane ghost bearing down on Daniel, Dan and Danielle cornered and one way or another unable to do anything, it seemed to be up to him. He glanced around, trying to figure out a plan as quickly as he could, practically backed into a corner himself, one hand bracing against the rubble that he had hidden Danielle behind when some of the same had struck her on the head.

The barriers that GhostWriter had erected were decently tall, but if he stood on his toes he'd be able to see over them.

Options flew through his mind, each one discarded almost as quickly as it came, his frustration growing with every one of them. It seemed like there was nothing to be done, no way out of this, and there would be the death of everyone he had in his life. The entire Fenton family with the exception of the few who lived outside of Amity, his uncle and the man's spouse, what amounted to his children...

Daniel was going to die, here and now, if he didn't do something.

That was the thought that spurred him from his hiding spot, his voice bellowing from his chest before he could think of what he was saying. "REWIND!" he screamed over the wind, watching with clenched fists as the ghost pulled away from Daniel, allowing the younger Halfa to scramble away.

"So you've survived too." Rewind hissed, his voice clear as day despite the storm that raged around them. The fury in his eyes only grew when Daniel ran to stand at Vlad's side, the two Halfas braced against each other. "A pity, but perhaps more fun for me in the end."

A shadow on the ground below Rewind twitched out of synch.

"You call this fun?" Vlad hissed, clamping a hand onto Daniel's shoulder, trying to take a deep breath despite what felt like at least two broken ribs. "This is your idea of fun? Perhaps we should try to find time to find you a new hobby." he grinned as he stepped forward, in front of Danny. The younger male seemed to be in worse shape than him, clutching both of his arms around his midsection, a wheezing second breath with every inhaled mouthful of air. "Or maybe a cat."

Vlad felt rather than heard Danny's silent laughter at that.

"A cat? You honestly think that taunting me like this is in any way a good idea?" Rewind raised the corrupted time staff, twirling it around in his hand like a baton. As he did so, the disturbing collar of power that he had placed on Clockwork diminished slightly, allowing him to relax a little. 

Forcing his eyes to remain on the ghost in front of him rather than the one that he was slightly worried about, Vlad nodded. "Seems as good idea as any, and I have thought of quite a few." he shrugged one shoulder, still holding protectively onto Daniel. "The truth is, however, that I can't really think of anything good enough to fight you with." he did his best to ignore the writhing shadows, a fierce grin stretching his face.

Rewind touched down on the ground in front of him, swinging the staff and snarling as it connected with a sick, gut rolling crack of sound against Vlad's face. "So your plan is to admit that you can't fight me, is it?"

Stumbling and landing on his knees, having let go of Danny when he saw what the ghost planned on doing, Vlad laughed. "Oh no, I never said that." he chuckled, fingertips pressing gingerly to the still somewhat bruised skin of his cheek. His words were slurred, just slightly, just enough to indicate the broken cheekbone that Rewind had caused, the stream of blood that started cascading down his face an obvious sign of it. 

Preparing to swing again, Rewind let out a shout when something slammed into him, a blur of grey and black that tumbled him across the ground, an enraged scream emitting from whatever it was. 

"My plan was to distract you just long enough." Vlad wiped at the blood on his face, smearing it more than clearing it off. Turning to look at Danny, he helped the Halfa over to where Danielle was still hidden. "Stay here, Daniel."

Danny shook his head, already fighting against Vlad's hold as the man settled him in next to their daughter. "But-"

"You're having trouble breathing, let alone standing up to fight." Vlad argued, pressing firmly against his shoulder until he stayed where he was. "Watch over Danielle, keep her here if she wakes up. I don't think she needs to be wandering around while possibly concussed, just as you don't need to be doing the same with a punctured lung."

"You're gonna get yourself killed." Danny protested weakly, the words coming out in gasps.

"Then I will have finally made myself useful." 

Vlad stood and turned on his heel after that, ignoring anything else that Danny might've said, his smile turning vicious as he noticed who was doing a decent job of fighting Rewind on his own. If anyone had told him even as recently as four years before that he would be fighting on the same side as Daniel, the Fentons, and the clone he had made, he would have called them insane.

Instead, his hair flying around his face and loose from the ponytail that normally held it, Vlad laughed at himself as he approached the barrier that held their ghost halves.

With the ghost of one Sidney Pointdexter holding Rewind back by attempting to pummel his face in, approach was easy enough. It was an eerie thing to see half of one's own self on display in front of one's own eyes, he thought as he forced a hand through the barrier, there was nothing good about it either. 

His arm ached the instant he touched it, his teeth chattering and a metallic buzz filling his mouth, like his entire body was a tongue and had just licked a nine-volt battery. 

Just one arm interrupting the flow of the prison made his bones feel like they were melting. Taking a deep breath, a gust of wind ripping his hair tie out completely, Vlad stepped forward until he was disrupting it at the base, stopping all the edges of it from meeting all at once. His heart stuttered in his chest, painful halts of what kept him alive making his eyes water and his head feel light. 

Eyes rolling back in his head, Vlad blacked out.

 

**Thirty-one hours earlier:**

 

"Alright, I've got my mom and dad out of the house with Ember and Skulker, I've got Danielle out of the house and headed for the library with Henry, and Dan and Clockwork are going to stay in the lab for a little while." Danny pulled a chair out from the table, sitting down next to Vlad with a huff. "Your uncle and Wilson are going to be in their room for a while, and Willow and her dad are having breakfast together at a place that is elsewhere."

Vlad didn't even look up from the papers in his hands, his face pale as he looked through them. 

Reaching slowly for his arm, allowing the older Halfa time to pull away, Danny clasped a gentle hand around his wrist. "Any questions you wanted to ask?" his voice was quiet, the words chosen carefully. "I know it's a little much to take in, and I really should have told you earlier, but..."

"They are our children, in all technicality." Vlad finally spoke, a heavy swallow following the words. "I knew about Danielle already, as she is the one I created, but to know the same is true for Dan?"

"Like I said, I know it's a little much." Danny leaned back in his chair, pushing his hair out of his face. "What I've heard from Clockwork seems to indicate that Dan's dual-core has settled into a singular one with both elements. Instead of him being separated into two, because of the two ghost halves being jammed into one-"

"He's his own person. An entirely new one." Vlad held up the papers, a frown tilting his mouth. "So I read. Your notes are quite extensive." his voice was weak, as if he were trying not to faint. 

Danny nodded, his hands twisting together in his lap. 

"How is it that you and I have children together?" Vlad asked quietly. "They are not children in the typical manner, but they are created from the both of us, with our genetics combined to create them. Danielle is somewhat similar to the traditional offspring, but that is not quite a-" he broke off, setting the papers down and hiding his face in his hands. Muttering something, his shoulders curled up, helping to hide his face from view. 

"Vlad?"

The older Halfa shook his head, then peeked through his fingers at Danny. He looked vulnerable, and it made something in Danny want to protect him. "I created Danielle and the others when you were fourteen, I took away the choice you had for having children on your own." 

"You weren't in the best state of mind at the time, Frootloop." Danny leaned forward again, tapping one finger on the papers. "Besides that, I'm weirdly glad that you did."

Vlad dropped his hands into his lap, staring dumbfoundedly at the younger Halfa. "Why?"

"Because I've gone through some testing, both in my parents lab and through a doctor's office." Danny offered him a small smile. "According to the results from both, I can't have kids in any other way. Turning into a Halfa made me pretty effectively sterile, and we had Danielle run through the same tests. She's the same way." he shrugged. "You might want to get yourself checked too, if you ever wanted kids."

"I am not sure that that is a truth I wish to find." Vlad murmured, rubbing one hand across the back of his neck. He leaned back in his chair, watching Danny do the same. "You seem so much more mature than before, Daniel."

Danny nodded, curling one leg up and pulling it against his chest, bracing his heel on the chair. "I guess I grew out of being...I dunno, resistant to you being anywhere near me? You calmed down some as well, once you stopped being the mayor, so I'm still kind of standing by the theory I had when I was younger."

"And what theory was that?"

"That you were stressed the hell out because of your job." Danny frowned, then corrected himself. "Jobs. You had several at the time, and you still do. Being the mayor meant that you were in direct control and guided by public opinion though. I also thought that, since we were the only Halfas besides Danielle, you might have been stressed about that too." he rubbed his chin on his shoulder, too lazy to reach a hand up and scratch it normally. "We got along at first, and then the thing with my dad and my mom and the trying to get me on your side that didn't work because you went about it the wrong way..."

He trailed off, then waved a hand at Vlad. "I never made anything easier for you either."

"You were a child, I was the adult. You should not have had to have been the one to act as the adult at times, but you did." Vlad watched Danny's hand return to his knee. "I acted petty and insolent and I should have acted my age instead."

Laughing and shaking his head, his entire body trembling with it, Danny grinned. "I think we're going to do better now."

 

**Now:**

 

"VLAD!" Danny's voice was barely able to be heard above the chaos that surrounded the cut off area they were in. His injuries weren't making it any easier, a punctured lung dragging the volume down into a gasp as he clutched tightly to his ribcage.

Across the space they were stuck in, Maddie tried to shift her husband and get out from underneath him. "Danny!" she called out, grunting when Jack's weight shifted onto her leg and knocked her flat again. After a minute, she managed to get his unconscious bulk off the top of her, running over to her son and dropping to her knees to avoid a bolt of lightning overhead. "Danny, are you alright?"

"I'm-" Danny gasped, watching as the barrier finally broke down completely and his ghost half came rushing back towards him, slamming into him. The impact knocked him backwards, and the same happened to Danielle, the unconscious young woman shuddering as she slept.

He sat up slowly, rings flashing over his body as he transformed into Phantom, fiercely glowing green eyes narrowing as he watched Sidney struggling with Rewind. 

"I'll be back." he braced himself, as if he were about to launch into the air. "Mom, take care of Danielle."

Maddie nodded as he took off, throwing himself in between the two ghosts and sending Rewind sprawling, landing in a tangle of limbs and stolen staff. Immediately after, green blasts of light flew through the air, scorching the ground around them. 

She turned back to Danielle, reaching out to feel for the girl's pulse and sighing in relief when she found it, then nearly jumped out of her skin when she noticed someone sitting on the ground next to her. It was a teenage boy with ghostly pale skin and glowing eyes, a length of rope still tied around his neck and a lettermen jacket in his hands. "Would this help? The storm is getting worse and I can't figure out how to make it stop." he gestured awkwardly at Danielle. "She helped me a couple a' years back and I'd like to return the favor."

Taking the jacket from him, Maddie nodded as she tucked it in around Danielle. "Would you be able to get her somewhere safe if it needed to happen?"

"Ain't nowhere that's safer than here right now, ma'am." the ghost smiled sadly as he gestured at the barrier. "I took care a' Spectra, and she's down for the count and not gonna do any more damage, but there's still the others out there. There's a ghost of a detective woman, and she has a human world weapon thing goin' on." he held out a hand. "I'm Freddy Bellgard, by the way."

"Maddie Fenton." she said, shaking it once. "...If you can't get her out of here, can you bring me a way to defend her? I'm not going to leave her here alone, and I also don't want to leave my husband alone long enough to find something myself." 

Freddy nodded, then stepped backwards and phased through the wall, vanishing out into the storm.

Watching over Danielle, Maddie scooted closer to her, forming a protective wall between the Halfa and the rest of the fighting. Her hands were twisted together, her eyes pinned to where her son was. With her own heart racing and enjoying it's new home in her throat, she switched over to watching her husband, still unconscious on the ground.

"Here." Freddy's voice was next to her ear, a weight resting in her lap that wasn't there before. "This is what I could find. I think it's yours anyways, says Fenton on the side."

She hefted the blaster in her hands. "Yes," she readied it, her heart rate calming down as she heard it whirring to life. "Yes it is."

 

**Twenty-three hours earlier:**

 

"Wait, say that again?" Danny pressed a hand against his forehead, as if he were willing himself to hear something different when Danielle spoke.

Danielle laughed, tucking a few loose strands of hair behind one ear. "I said, and will only say again, that Henry Walters is going to go on a date with William Lancer. They met at the library, bonded over Shakespeare, then Henry asked him out and now they're going to go to dinner together tonight." 

"...Alright then." the older of the two sighed, ruffling his hair with one hand as he shook his head. "As long as they're both happy, then I really can't bring myself to argue with it."

"It seemed like they were both happy." Danielle reported with a mock salute, going so far as to bow slightly. "And from what you've told me about Lancer, he kind of seems like he needs something to be happy about. When you were in high school, he was overworked and tired all the time, making stupid decisions based on his emotional and mental clarity in the moment."

Danny sighed again. "That's true. The guy taught like, four or five classes on top of being the vice principal. That kind of workload isn't good for anyone." he paused for a moment, then laughed. "And if he gets on friendly terms with Henry, then he might be less afraid of the city he lives in."

"Exactly!" Danielle giggled.

They both slumped on the couch they were sitting on, Danielle's feet perched on the edge of it, a comfortable silence spreading between the two of them. Eventually the silence was broken, Danielle sitting back up and looking at Danny. 

"So you told him?"

"Yeah. He knew about you, and he knew a little about Dan, but he didn't know about the sterile thing." Danny shrugged, scratching at his goatee. "I'm glad I got to warn him before he tried having kids and was disappointed. It nearly destroyed me and Sam being friends after we broke up, and as much as he and I sometimes don't get along, that's not a thing I'd wish on anyone."

Danielle sighed, her good humor gone. "Do you think that, maybe if he'd known..." she curled her arms around herself. "Do you think he would have acted more like my dad if he'd known?"

Tugging her against his side, Danny kissed the top of her head. "Can't really say, but I'd like to think he'd be decent enough to have realized what he needed to do and act on it." he huffed out something that was almost a laugh, a quiet noise of amusement that seemed somehow sad. "He'd say he's not that good of a person, but I think he'd do what was right."

"I hope so." she whispered, curling up against him. "He wasn't the best, but he was my dad."

At the door to the living room, unnoticed by either of them, Vlad stood with his back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. His hands were pressed against the wall hard enough that his arms were shaking, and his lips were pinched together as if he were trying to keep from making any sound.

His eyes were suspiciously watery as he forced himself to look away, kept himself from looking into the room.

"Vladimir?" came the voice of his uncle, the taller man pausing at the foot of the stairs. "Is everything alright?" William stepped closer, his hand clutched around a small case of some kind. 

"I-" Vlad breathed through his nose, then stepped away from the wall and nodded. "Everything will be fine."

"Good." William popped open the case, then pulled something out of it and tucked it under his arm. "You need to start wearing these. I understand that you're a Halfa, and as such you don't require much medical assistance, but your eyes are still off just enough to require your damned glasses." he set them on his nephew's nose, tucking them around his ears gently. "There is no shame in tears, there is no shame in needing something to help you function."

Vlad nodded again, pressing a hand over his mouth and curling in on himself.

"If I meet your father, I might have to beat the man." William promised quietly, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and leading him away from the living room. 

"His treatment of my mother was much better than his treatment of me." Vlad muttered, pushing his glasses out of the way as he rubbed at his eyes. "Your niece was happy with him, if that's what you're worried about. They grew a little distant as he got older, but they reconciled before they died."

"My anger," William said tersely, settling Vlad down on the steps and kneeling in front of him. "Has nothing to do with the treatment of my niece. He borderline abused you, destroyed your ability to hold your head up high, and then everyone you once called a friend left you behind and you didn't question it." his hands were clenched into fists, a darkness crossing his face that only one person in the house would have recognized. "For your sake, entirely for your sake, I wish to harm him."

"But-"

"You are my family, and you have so very little." William stopped his protests, a hand relaxing and landing on Vlad's shoulder. "I also wish very much that I could fix that."

"I am a multi-billionaire with several businesses that I run and hundreds of thousands of people knowing my name and my face. I have everything I could possibly ever want, and you think I have nothing?" Vlad's face was screwing up like he was about to rant angrily at his uncle, his entire body tense. "I will have you know-"

"That despite your wealth, you were just standing outside of the room that holds your daughter and the other person responsible for half of her parentage and looking about ready to cry."

Vlad's words died in his throat, his body slumping against the stair railing, William leaning forward to pull him into a short hug. 

"If I have my way, and if you have what I suspect is yours, they will be family. Perhaps you should go about it a different way than you have in the past." William smiled, his angular face warmed by the expression.

 

**Now:**

 

Rewind swung upwards, trying to force Danny off of him and back, snarling as he thrashed around. "You worthless piece of absolute nothing!" he screamed, his yellow eyes glowing brightly.

"Don't call him that!" Sidney yelled back, diving in between the two of them and digging the heel of his shoe into Rewind's throat, holding him down while Danny tried to catch his breath. For the first time since they had met, Sidney was exhibiting some of the typical powers of a ghost, his hands surrounded by glowing flames."You're just a bully, and you shouldn't be calling anyone names like that!" 

His head pounding, Danny stood up straight again, a hand pressed to his ribs and one eye on Vlad where he still lay on the ground. "Face it, Rewind. You're not going to win today."

"That's what you think, you miserable sack of-" he cut off with a choked sound, the shadows peeling off the ground and wrapping him in a cocoon. The staff clattered to the ground and the air went still as the shadows swarmed around the thief, slamming him into the barrier that he'd had the GhostWriter create. 

From over the edge of the barrier came William, his eyes dark and his teeth bared in a feral grin. "What was that you were saying?" A tendril of shadow that followed after him was cradling an unconscious Wilson, the smaller man's forehead bleeding sluggishly. "Because I could have sworn that what you've done is enough to sentence you to imprisonment forever, as you have damaged both Wilson and my nephew." his glasses were long gone, shattered in an earlier moment, and it made him look unhinged.

Danny let out a sigh of relief, relaxing and immediately tensing back up as the movement made his entire body ache. 

"You have no idea how glad I am to see you right now." he addressed William, wincing when the white rings flashed over his body again, turning him back into his human self. His face was bruised, along with most of his visible skin, and he smiled somewhat pathetically at the former-King. "Why did the storm stop?"

"It may simply be a hunch, but I suspect that I severed the connection Rewind had created between himself and the one creating it." William twitched his hand, tightening the shadows that were wrapped around Rewind. "You may wish to get that back to it's owner, however, for I believe that there may be another threat on the way. Wilson said as much before he was rendered unconscious."

Nodding as he picked it up, Danny gave a half-hearted salute as he walked over to Clockwork, crouching down and holding it out to the true Master of Time. "Here."

The ghost was shaking as well, a dark blue ring around his neck from the collar that Rewind had put on him, but he managed to take it. With a sigh, he pulled the small piece that he'd been wearing as a necklace off, tilting the staff so that he could press them back together. The two pieces fit together neatly, the staff's shape shifting back to it's original one, the damages that Rewind had caused fixing themselves. 

"Thank you Daniel." Clockwork murmured, his voice raspy.

Dan's arms wrapped around the ghost, pulling him to his chest as he looked up towards the sky. "This doesn't feel like it's over." he whispered, scooping Clockwork up and standing slowly, limping slightly as he began walking over to where Maddie and Danielle were. "Grab Vlad if you can, we need to regroup."

"I've got them." William walked past him, shadows curling behind him. Jack and Vlad were each being pulled along by him, and he paused to look at Danny. "Do you need help walking?"

Sidney stepped forward and slid himself under Danny's arm, taking most of the Halfa's weight off of his feet. "I've got him," he said quietly, a small smile on his face. "Get them to the others, I'll get him there too."

The man nodded, walking off with his three unconscious bundles of person.

"Where the hell did you guys come from anyways?" Danny asked as he let Sidney help him walk over to his family. "Could have sworn that all the ghosts who weren't involved were hiding in the Ghost Zone, away from all of the fighting. Especially since you all hate conflict within the community, like when Pariah was running around and I had to fight him."

"You should know that I wanted to do something about that." Sidney made a face, then looked to where they were heading, smiling when he caught sight of Freddy. "And now that I have him, my memories are locked into where they should be and I'm...I'm trying to be better. When we heard about what was happening in the human world, we decided to rally some of the other ghosts and bring them out." his smile grew as he nodded. "We found someone who knew the histories of the others that were being controlled, and we used that information to fix things so that you and your pals wouldn't be too overwhelmed."

Danny nodded, an impressed look on his face. "So who did you bring out?"

"Well..." Sidney shrugged. "The detective lady ghost was kind of where we started. The last victim of the murderer she chased down in the sixties was this little kid who actually became a ghost."

"What little kid? The only ones I can think of who would fit that description would be- No. Oh no, no way." Danny shuddered. "Please tell me it isn't-"

"He calls himself Youngblood." Sidney confirmed. 

 

**Sixteen hours earlier:**

 

Wilson was pressed against a wall, hands to his head and hiding his face as he rested a tape recorder in his lap, the ever streaming flow of knowledge falling from his lips into the immortal hands of technology.

The 'click' of the small machine being turned off made him smile, and he dropped one of his hands into the shadows that now surrounded him. "Hello William." he greeted, sitting up straighter. "How did it go with your nephew?" he asked as he passed a quick hand through his hair, pushing it out of his face and finally opening his eyes. 

One look at the taller man's face made him pause, however, and he frowned. "That badly?"

"I need you to tell me, and tell me honestly, if I was ever that horrendously awful." William slumped against the wall, sliding down it until he was sitting next to Wilson, pulling him closer and pressing his nose into his still-wild hair. "And if I ever was, I may need you to slap me."

"That badly." Wilson concluded, reaching up to angle William's chin so that he could kiss him gently. "You might have been a shade of what he's like, but your reasons are entirely known to me. I have not gone hunting for the answers of what has happened to your nephew, and I will not unless it is asked for. Yours were an uncontrolled reflex, one that I had no chance of stopping." he tapped his fingers against William's jaw, just once, an amused gleam in his eyes. "There. Slap administered."

William laughed, shaking his head as he pulled the smaller man closer and sighed. "I found him outside the room that his daughter and Daniel were sitting in, the two of them talking, and Vladimir was listening in on their conversation."

"Oh." Wilson shrugged. "You may have been entirely the same as him on that front. There are things I said that I know you listened in on."

His face a shade of red, William nodded. "This is true. My listening in was due to me being an insufferable bastard, while his is because he feels alone and wants to figure out how to be in his daughter's life." a moment passed, then: "And I can't believe he cloned Daniel without his permission. It is a violation of rights, it seems to me, to create the child of someone without their knowledge. Miss Danielle is obviously of both of their bloodlines, she looks entirely too much like my nephew around the face to be simply Daniel's progeny."

"...If they leave on their own to fight Rewind, they're both going to die." Wilson's eyes were wide as he whispered the words. "Even if Danielle goes with them, the three of them are still going to die, and it will be something horrible for the world."

 

Now:

 

Danielle was awake when Danny finally managed to sit down next to her, clutching at his ribs but breathing a little easier now that his slight healing factor had been returned to him. 

"You okay?" he asked, gaze going immediately to her cheek, frowning when he realized that her right eye was swollen shut and her bottom lip was cracked and bloody. "Because I gotta tell you, you really don't look okay." he reached out carefully, brushing her hair out of her face and waiting anxiously when she didn't say anything. "Danielle?"

"You could have died." she hissed angrily. 

"Kind of comes with the job." Danny reminded her, watching as William settled Vlad against the wall next to him. His next words were distracted, a quiet attempt at placating her. "I'm sorry if I scared you, but it needed to be done. Rewind wasn't going to retract his powers any other way, and we wouldn't have gotten the fight turned in our favor if I didn't."

Unlike the rest of the Halfas, Vlad had transformed into his ghost self when he'd dropped unconscious, his injuries a little more serious than theirs. 

Actually, Danny realized as he watched Vlad's face, it looked less like he'd transformed and more like the color schemes had been swapped out. Vlad was still wearing his normal clothes, but his skin was blue and his hair was black, plastered against his skin in soaking-wet waves. Reaching up to the older Halfas face, Danny carefully pulled back one of his eyelids, only somewhat startled when the revealed eye was a bright red color. 

"-Danny?"

He turned back to Danielle. "I think something's wrong with Vlad." 

Getting slowly to her feet, Danielle edged around Danny and plopped down on the ground next to Vlad, awkwardly gesturing at him. "I was gonna say. He looks wrong, Plasmius doesn't look like this. It kind of looks like he got caught between the two shapes, and now they're mixed together."

The air around them went cold, all conversation grinding to a halt as an angry voice echoed around them, accompanied by the angry visage of an Observant. "What are you doing?"

Danny looked up at him, frowning as he watched the old ghost move closer. "What the hell do you mean, 'what are we doing'? What are you doing here? I thought you guys had an oath never to interfere." he paused, then nodded. "Yeah, you're supposed to anyways. I kind of distinctly remember you and the rest of the council trying to convince Clockwork to erase me from the timeline."

"That is none of your business." the Observant's one-eyed gaze drifted towards Rewind for a minute, and he made an unhappy noise. 

A raspy snarl made everyone pause as they turned to look at where William had Wilson braced against the wall, the smaller of the two glaring at the Observant. "None of his business?" he growled, his eyes almost glowing with anger. "NONE of his business? I happen to think that it's very much his business when someone who is supposed to help keep the timeline intact is acting out of position and encouraging an insane ghost to attack."

"I-"

"So help me, if you try to excuse your actions when you and I both know that I know the truth, I am going to have William shove something so very far up somewhere so very unpleasant." Wilson threatened, his eyes narrowed on the ghost. "Rewind had a key to allow those he recruited for his army out of the prisons that you and yours are supposed to run." he jerked his chin towards something behind the ghost. "The others all have theirs, but yours appears to be missing."

William petted at his hair fondly, a small smile on his face. "He has a certain sort of knowledge, and I would not test him on it if I were you."

True to Wilson's words, the rest of the Observant council had arrived, each one of them glaring at the rogue member of their group as he motioned at Rewind. "You would listen to those who hold him back and probably encouraged him in the first place?" he gestured uselessly at the group of them.

"We would listen to those who tell the truth." one of the other council members answered. "And that is not you."

The rogue Observant shook his head. "You need to listen to me! They have done horrible things, and they need to be stopped before they alter the timeline in a more permanent way! The female Halfa was created by the older male one, the younger male one would turn into a darkness that spreads across the world if he were to be given that chance! We must, as we exist, see to it that that does not happen."

Dan stepped forward, still somewhat supporting Clockwork. "What, you mean me?"

"Consider that he stepped in the way when Rewind went to destroy me, then again when the very same threatened to do so once more." Clockwork added in, grasping his staff in one hand and looking up at the council with a blank expression. "He rallied these people when the threat became larger, has been transformed into a human for the sake of saving my existence. The female Halfa is named Danielle, and she is for all intents and purposes, his sister. 

"He has accepted this calmly, greeting her as his kin and blood. His reaction upon learning of how she was brought into life was defensive and angry towards the one who had done so and then abandoned her." Clockwork shook his head. "Your so-called villains are nothing more than those you see as threats to your position, especially when I say the sentence that dooms you most of all."

"And what is that?" the leader of the council asked, voice straddling the line between anger and suspicion.

"The ones that he has mentioned as threats to the world are the ones that he had always been in favor of disposing of, one way or another." Clockwork explained calmly, a bit of a smirk on his lips. "So the sentence that dooms him is thus: Why are the ones you wish to get rid of the only ones with enough power to get rid of you?"

"I'm not- That is to say-" 

"You're a fucking liar." Rewind finally spoke up, rolling his eyes from where William still had him tethered. "Just give up already, you know you're caught, I know you're caught, everyone knows you're ruined, and you might as well just admit it and get it over with."

The council, except for two members who stood back, surrounded the rogue member and Rewind, disappearing with the two of them.

"I really want this power-play politics stuff to be done with." Danny sighed as he leaned against the barrier, his eyes falling shut. "I'm really tired of it." All of the lights seemed to be behind his eyelids when he closed them, and he groaned quietly as everything grew quiet. 

A hand on his arm made him shake his head, batting at it gently.

"Danny, you need to stay awake."

"Too tired..." he muttered, his vision going dark, the burning pain of his ribs flaring even more as his body went limp.

 

**Four hours earlier:**

 

The first explosions against the side of the house roused everyone from their restful states, chasing them out of the small amount of comfort that they had managed to find as loud booming laughter echoed around the entire building.

When thunder and lightning started flashing and cracking around the sky, sudden tidal rains washing down the windows, Vortex was the first to respond. There was panic in his eyes as he stood up slowly, still wearing most of his armor and his fists raised like it would do something. Almost instantly, Nocturne was at his side, pushing him back into his chair and murmuring something that seemed to soothe him, gesturing towards where Wilson had last been.

"Mom?" Danny called up the stairs, setting down the laptop he had commandeered for his personal use. 

The lights flickered out, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end as a wisp of icy air traveled over his lips, a matching flame coming from Vlad. The two Halfas looked at each other for a moment, then raced upstairs, slamming the door behind them as they headed for Danielle and the rest of the Fentons. 

"Mom!"

"Maddie!" 

Maddie snuck around the corner from the living room, a small blaster in her hands as she pressed a finger to her lips. Jack stood behind her, a similar weapon in his hands, and he shook his head, tossing something to his son. 

Catching it without blinking, Danny nodded, scrolling through the screen of the phone his dad had handed over, his face twisting with worry as he read what was in front of him. The phone was a modified one that his dad had worked on for months, synching the ghost shield at home with the device in an attempt to create something like a commercial security system. An alert was flashing on the screen, large letters proclaiming that the system had been shut down from the outside, power overloaded and made useless.

Vlad leaned in, a hand on Danny's elbow to bring the phone closer to his face as he read the alert, his face going pale as he realized what it was saying. 

"They've gotten into Fentonworks," Maddie whispered, gesturing for Danielle to follow her as she made her way to the front door on silent feet. "Who knows what has been taken, or who even was in there. I am not treating this as unrelated to the sudden storm, and I don't think anyone should."

"I would have to agree, actually." Vlad whispered back, sliding his glasses off of his nose and settling them on a table before heading straight for the door, peering out the small window next to it. 

As if agreeing with both of them, a bolt of lightning struck the front yard, leaving behind a blackened patch of grass, still smoldering despite the rain. The Fenton R.V, still parked out in the driveway, was tilting dangerously to one side in the wind, a faint scraping noise being thrown at the house that could barely be heard over the roaring. 

"I think I know at least one of the ghosts that Rewind might have recruited." Danny muttered as he looked out at the sky from the other window. "Vortex did have a teacher."

A shadow lifted from the floor and wrapped around the handle of the door, keeping it firmly closed as William raced down the stairs, Wilson half a step behind him. Clockwork and Dan followed along, Dan nearly tumbling down the steps as he hurried down, grabbing at the railing and jerking himself to a stop. "You are not going out there without backup." he snarled, still clinging to the banister. 

Vlad and Danny looked at each other, eyebrows raised, then shrugged.

William nodded, a hand clenched in front of him as he directed the shadows to form a barrier between them Halfas and the door. "Not without me, at the very least." his voice was quiet, but the words were firm, no room for argument. "If you go out there alone, you are going to get killed." 

As if she could argue against that, Maddie frowned. "Danny's faced things like this before, how do you-" her words broke off when Wilson cleared his throat and raised a hand.

"With all due respect," he started. "I made a deal with the Nightmare Throne, and it held up it's end of the deal. I got the ultimate knowledge that I requested, with no limits and nothing hidden from me. It seems to have made me somewhat of a seer, and I have knowledge of what would happen to your son and Vladimir if they were to go out there and fight against this alone. I suspect that you, much like William, do not want either of them dead."

Maddie nodded, then sighed, blaster still in hand as she looked towards the front door. "We all go then. The city is in danger and there are people out there who will need help."

"Mom, you need to-"

"Daniel Fenton, don't you argue with me." she scolded automatically. "I am not leaving my boy to fend for himself out there if something goes wrong. I spent six years wondering why you would sometimes have bloody laundry and bruises on your arms, and I am not going to back down now that I know the truth." her face softened as she looked at him, then leaned over and pressed a hand to his cheek. "I spent six years threatening my own son without knowing it. If I have the chance to make it right in some way, I will."

Reaching for his wife's shoulder, Jack nodded. "Besides that, son, we're family. We're not gonna be pulled apart by some miserable ghost who wants us all dead."

 

**Now:**

 

The slow beep-beep-beep of hospital machines woke him up, consciousness returning to him in a hazy sort of way that felt like molasses being poured into his head, almost every part of him aching behind a wall of numbness caused by high-grade prescription painkillers.

"Danny?" 

The voice saying his name was almost a dagger to the headache that had been waiting for him to notice it and he winced as it struck true. A couple more voices, thankfully lower in volume, responded to the first when it said something again, fingers wrapping around his wrist and pressing into the pulse that lay there. Something blessedly cool pressed against his forehead and he relaxed into the scratchy bedsheets that wrapped around him, taking a deep breath.

Two bony points dug into the relatively undamaged portion of his shoulders and pressed just hard enough to catch his attention, followed by an almost angry voice saying, "Wake up, father dearest."

Opening his eyes felt like a monumental task, but he managed it, taking another deep breath as he spotted Dan at his side, the ghost-turned-human crossing his arms back over his chest. "Are you done sleeping now?" he asked, his tone sarcastic and entirely betrayed by the worry in his eyes. "Or do we have to wait a full century for you to join us back in the world of consciousness?"

"'M awake." Danny managed, jolting slightly when the bed moved and he found himself sitting up a little more. 

Danielle was in his line of sight now, bandages wrapped around her head and one taped neatly over her cheek, most of the swelling around her eye having gone down. "Here," she said quietly, her voice identifiable as the one he had first heard upon waking up. She held a paper cup of water out to him, close enough to his face that she could help him drink it if needed. "I'm thinking that you might need this right now."

He managed to take it from her, raising it in a shaky hand and drink from it in small sips. "Thanks."

"So how the hell did we just survive that?" she asked when his mouth was empty and he was playing with the empty cup. "Because the last thing I was aware of was that creep ripping out our ghost halves with the weird dream-catcher thing- And I still want to know what the fuck that was -then slamming me into the wall. " a pause, her hands gripping the edge of her seat as she turned to look briefly at her brother, then, "I heard Vlad screaming my name."

Nodding and holding out a hand for her to take, Danny smiled, wincing again when it pulled on a scabbed over cut on his cheek. "He was the first of the two of us to make it to your side when you didn't move again."

"Why him?" Dan's voice drew their attention, his eyebrow raised. "I was a little distracted by trying to sneak around his back and snag Clockwork's staff back."

"We- When we work together, Vlad and I work together really well." Danny ruffled the back of his hair in an almost embarassed way. "Without even talking to each other, we know what we need to do, and what we needed to do was split up so that he could check on Danielle and I could go after Rewind. It was kind of an instant, silent, coin toss as to who would go where, and it was changed around when my ribs were kind of-"

"Yeah, got that part." Danielle said angrily. "Four of them were snapped clean in half, one of them jammed most of the way into your damn lung. If it weren't for your ghost half, they wouldn't have been willing to risk doing the surgery to fix it, and you probably would have died!" she grumbled something, then dug her hands into her hair, looking for a moment exactly like Vlad. 

Danny frowned, reaching to take her wrist in his hand, reassuring himself with the pulse in her wrist much like she had with him. "Speaking of Vlad, is he- I mean, is everything alright with him?"

"He still hasn't woken up." Dan took over explaining, reaching behind himself to open the curtain that surrounded the three of them. It gave Danny a view of the other side of the room, the second bed occupied by the aforementioned man. Like Danny himself, he had a few people at his bedside, including Maddie and a wheelchair-bound Jack. "We're all very worried, but Clockwork has assured us of his future as a walking, talking mess of a human being."

 

**Three hours earlier:**

 

With a harsh gasp of breath forced out of his mouth, Vlad watched as the storm surged overhead, watching over the newly created barrier as the Writer walked away, a stiff-legged walk that looked almost painful. 

His uncle was over the wall as well, eyes blackened until there was nothing but the emptiness of the darkness in them.

Wilson was at his side, both of his hands pressed to his head, as if he were in an immense amount of pain, his knuckles white where they were curled in his hair. Every inch of him was tensed, and Vlad felt his core lighting up in fury at the realization that the GhostWriter had done that, had hurt what was as good as his uncle's husband, had damaged some part of the small family that he was realizing he now had.

Before he could make a move towards Daniel, before he could even begin to plot how they were going to get out of this, something fell over him and dragged backwards. 

Above his head, Rewind was cackling madly, holding the frame of what had once been the Fenton Ghostcatcher, seemingly pleased about the results of whatever it was that he had done. The scraped clean feeling in Vlad's chest made him cough as he backed away from the ghost, his eyes narrowing as he caught sight of what had been done, meeting Plasmius's eyes for the first time outside of a mirror. "What-" he clutched at his chest, coughing again as Rewind tossed Plasmius aside, waving the stolen staff and smirking when the ghost-half went still next to what appeared to be Danielle's ghost-half.

"This is just me evening the playing field." Rewind swung the staff again, throwing Vlad across the clearing. 

He landed heavily, the back of his head slamming against the wall and jolting his entire body, his vision blacking out for a second as he resisted the urge to empty his stomach on the ground next to him. Vlad clapped a hand over his mouth, watching as Daniel threw himself at the ghost, kept going even when his ghost-half was removed, kept fighting until he was knocked to the ground and Clockwork tried to intervene. 

The Master of Time was tossed away as well, his own staff shoved against his chest hard enough that it was obvious even from Vlad's position this far away that it had hurt. Clockwork landed heavily, despite being a ghost, and Dan was at his side immediately, his teeth bared in a snarl that Vlad couldn't hear. As a choking green line appeared around Clockwork's throat, Vlad struggled to his feet, sinking back down when a piece of debris nearly knocked him unconscious in the same way it had done to Jack.

Maddie was pinned under the weight of her unconscious husband, her eyes wide as she watched her son launch himself at Rewind again, his eyes narrowed and no reassuring glow of green around his hand as he curled it into a fist. Vlad could hear her labored breathing as she watched her youngest child fall to the ground again, stopped from getting up once more by Rewind's boot pressing against his chest.

Even with the storm going on around them, Vlad could hear the cracking of the younger Halfa's ribs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ended up being a lot longer than I thought it was going to be...
> 
> So yeah.
> 
> Uhm.
> 
> I am kind of bad at writing battle scenes? I think? Tell me what you thought in the comments.


	10. Everything I Tried To Be

Waking up slowly, much like Danny had before him, Vlad winced as the light hit his eyes; Even through the lids, the brightness hurt him, his entire body tensing in response.

A gentle hand on his arm relaxed him slightly, the scents of a hospital hitting his nose and making his nose wrinkle in distaste. The hand stayed where it was, a blur of noise trickling into his range of hearing as something cool was pressed against his forehead. "Mhnm..." he tried to speak, tried to ask what was happening, but the hand moved down to cover his mouth for a moment. 

The voices sounded again, this time much clearer. "Damn it Vlad, you're supposed to act more selfish than that." said one of them, the hand growing slightly colder as it pressed back against his forehead.

His throat felt like it was on fire, his core reacting wildly to the exhaustion that still threatened to drag him back down into it's clutches, but he managed to speak in return. "Daniel..." he coughed once, managing to force his eyes open slightly. "That would not have gone nearly as well if I had been."

Daniel had his arm pressed carefully to his side, the spots of bruising on his face making him look fragile for the first time in a long while. "You could have died, Vlad. The doctors were saying stuff about you possibly not waking up, and the fact that your left eye had something weird going on? I only heard bits of it..."

"That is an odd I have beaten before." Vlad muttered.

The younger Halfa pulled his hand back and pressed it against his own face, grumbling something and shaking his head. "Not the point, Frootloop." he jammed the heel of his palm into his forehead, grinding it into the skin for a moment. "I'm not sure how well I would have handled it if you had died. I'm not even sure how well Dan and Danielle would have handled it." he gestured at the door, clearing his throat. "Your uncle is standing outside, so I'm not going to hit you like I really want to, but there is going to come a day when I manage to smack some sense into you about how much you actually mean to people."

"What-"

"My dad, Vlad Masters." Danny leaned into the older Halfa's space. "Your uncle, his spousal person, my mom now that you aren't hitting on her every minute. Danielle and Dan, even, because now you're not as much of an asshole and they want you around. Every person I just listed would like to see you happy one day, and they want you alive and well to feel that.

"...Besides," Daniel continued quietly, curling a protective hand around his injured arm. "That's something I want for you too."

A knock on the door stopped Vlad from saying anything to the younger Halfa, an odd sensation of butterflies in his stomach as he watched Daniel slink towards his bed and slide back under the covers before the door opened. A woman with long brown hair pulled back into a braid 'tsk'ed' at him, raising an eyebrow, her hands clasped around the clipboard she carried. "As if I'm going to believe you actually were behaving, Mister Fenton." she scolded, a wavering hint of stress to her voice, the barely-there circles and obvious exhaustion not changing her demeanor at all. 

Ruffling the hair on the back of his head, Daniel grinned at her. "So what do the x-rays say? Do I need a cast or a sling?"

"You need a sling, but I suspect that'll change soon enough, probably before we can get you one." she motioned back out the door. "We've got enough people who don't have supernatural healing abilities, you're kind of the least damaged patients in this place right now."

Daniel sighed, then nodded. "Can I ask how many people got hurt? Ballpark figure."

"Well," she flipped a page on her clipboard, then bit her lip, staring intently at the paper for a moment. "There's over a hundred people who got hurt during this particular thing, and I don't think that there's a single person left in Amity Park who can deny the existence of ghosts now." she gestured out the door again, letting her arm fall to her side, the clipboard dangling precariously from her fingers. "Everyone in this hospital saw that ghost controlling the storm, and the one that was walking around and creating monsters and danger out of nowhere."

"I think we should just be grateful it wasn't worse..." Danny's uninjured arm curled up and around his neck, fingers gripping at the back of it, worrying the skin. "Those particular ghosts weren't doing that of their own free will, by the way. From what I've heard of them, they wouldn't even think about attacking people directly."

She shrugged, then jammed her hand into her pocket. "I'm just hoping that weird group doesn't come into town again...Last time there was a ghost attack anywhere near this magnitude, those guys in white suits closed us down with our patients still inside the building."

"Pretty sure that those guys got scared off a while back." Danny grinned at her. "I don't think they'll come back in a large group ever again, defeat doesn't give them a free reign of Amity when their boss gets angry at them for it." his grin turned sheepish. "I might have had something to do with that. In my defense, they were trying to lock me in a cage and do experiments on me one of the first times we met, and they were also trying to do things to this city. I couldn't stand by and watch it happen."

"Yes, well..." she turned to Vlad, gesturing at him with the clipboard. "It's good to see you awake, Mister Masters, I'm glad for it. Maybe you can keep him in his bed for once, I keep having to shoo him back here when he sneaks out to check on other patients."

"I will do my best in that endeavor, but I can promise nothing." Vlad found himself saying, curling his fingers in the edge of his blanket, staring fixedly at one of his knees under the fabric. "From what I have heard, he is an impossible patient, refusing to lie still even when under the charming influence of a temperature in the hundreds."

"That was once!" Danny protested, a grin still plastered on his face.

"Hmmm..." the doctor narrowed her eyes at him, one brow raised as she pulled a penlight from her pocket and approached Vlad. "Here, while I'm here I might as well take a look at that eye. Open?"

As she shined the light in his face, Vlad frowned.

"Your left eye isn't reacting. No dilation, no constriction..." her face pinched with worry, she sat back a bit and made a note on the chart. "What can you tell me about what you see?"

"It seems like it should be normal." Vlad's frown grew deeper. "But looking at the light was as if I was seeing it on a screen. Something removed and not a part of my life, certainly not something I saw. There's a small field of grey, off to my left and partially above my head, but other than those two things, nothing seems any different."

Danny watched closely, looking as if he might leap up from his bed and float across the room to sit at Vlad's side and see it for himself. "I have a theory as to why nothing looks different from the outside view." he spoke quietly.

"And why is that?" both Vlad and the doctor spoke at the same time.

With a guilty look at her, Danny slipped back out from under the covers, padding across the tiled floor barefoot, then sat down on the edge of the bed. He extended a hand, waiting for Vlad to take it in his own and smiling when the man did. "It's what we were talking about the other day, before the fighting happened. You've kept it up for so long that it's second nature by now, and you've got yourself trained to wear it over whatever injuries you might have, even if hiding them does more damage to you than good."

The older Halfa almost protested, then took a deep breath and nodded. "You have a very good point, Daniel."

"So," Danny shook their clasped hands for a moment, like he was greeting the man. "Ta-da."

The doctor drew in a breath, almost a gasp, as she looked between the two of them. "I knew from fixing him up that he was like you, Mister Fenton, but I hadn't expected this! He looks-"

"And if you could please keep it quiet, that'd be great." Danny said softly, not even turning away from Vlad as he addressed her. "Vlad, this is Emily Singhred. Ever since I told my parents about who I am, she's the doctor I've been going to, and she runs a little clinic just North of town, about an hour away. Anything that's wrong with me that I can't fix or my parents can't fix, I go to her. She took up studying ghosts when she was seventeen."

Doctor Singhred nodded, giving a reassuring smile as she pulled her penlight back up and gestured towards his eye. "Can I look again?"

Stunned into silence, Vlad nodded as well, following her soft instructions. "I am still getting distortions in my vision," he informed her, a little more comfortable now that he had been given more information about her. The hand he still held probably helped a little as well, and he clutched it a little tighter as she tutted. "Is something the matter?"

"Well," she pulled back and tucked the pen away, a frown twisting her lips. "What you're describing is inconsistent with what I'm seeing, but Danny here has never had eye damage like this, so I don't know if it's internal damage or something else." she sighed, then picked her clipboard back up. "There's some corneal abrasion, a series of scratches, almost like small claw marks, across the cornea of your eye. One of the scratches looks as if it may have gone quite a bit deeper than the others, and it may be the cause of the change in your vision."

Danny's hand tightened around Vlad's and the younger Halfa listened intently to the doctor's words as she explained that she'd like them to take notes on it and make sure that it didn't get any worse before she picked herself up and swept out the door. "...Vlad?"

"Yes Daniel?"

"Are you going to be okay?"

Vlad considered the question for a moment, then nodded slowly. "I think so." he sighed, then nodded again. "I may very well be alright at some point in the future. You would not happen to know a therapist as well as a doctor, would you?"

It was a quiet question, almost as if he had not meant for it to be heard, but Danny smiled and answered it anyways. "Her name is Yannak, and I researched her thoroughly and completely before I even set a foot in her office. She's not human either, but she puts her supernatural connection to good use to drum up clients in the human, ghost, supernatural creatures and other worlds."

"Is she any good?"

"Yeah. I had a series of panic attacks a couple of years ago, and she's the one who coached me through them and the after effects. When we get out of here, I'll get you her card and tell her you're considering coming in." Danny's other hand raised up, looking for a moment like he was considering brushing the hair out of Vlad's face, only to pause at the last second and bury itself in his own hair. "She'd take you on as a client, no doubt about it."

"What sort of creature is she?" Vlad's knees were pulled up to his chest now, most of him curled into a ball. "The last person whose powers involved- Well, you know the story of myself and Spectra by now." his hand was still holding Danny's, the one point of connection between him and the rest of the world.

"She's a misery-eater and a werewolf." Danny answered promptly. "She feeds off of misery, but in a way that removes it instead of draining the person she's feeding off of. She almost scared me off when I found that out, but she's turned out to be really good for me."

Suddenly feeling exhausted, Vlad smiled. "I hope she will help me as well." he closed his eyes, leaning back against the head of the bed and sighing deeply.

"Hey Frootloop?"

"Hmm?"

Something cool and soft pressed against his cheek for a moment, Daniel's fingers squeezing his once more before slipping away as the other stepped back over to his bed. "I'm glad you're not- I mean..." a frustrated noise. "I'm glad you chose to help us instead of being like you used to."

Using his now freed fingers to brush over the spot he was certain had been kissed, Vlad smiled, his eyes still closed. "I am too, Badger."

 

XxXxX

 

Several weeks later, Vlad walked out of the office of Doctor Yannak, dressed in something that he would never be recognized in.

His hair was down, a wave of silver across his shoulders that was partially obscured by a slouching beanie in dark blue. The purple-grey shirt he wore would have looked at home in any twenty-something's wardrobe, as would the black jeans that followed. On his feet were a pair of hightops that matched the hat, gifted to him by Daniel. 

Dark-blue eyes were framed by glasses as he looked around carefully before transforming and jolting up into the air, opening a portal about sixty feet up and slipping through, landing carefully on the roof to his house.

"If you aren't too busy now that you've come back, there is dinner ready." came the voice of his uncle from a few feet away. William smiled at his nephew, gesturing towards the door that lead into the house. "I have yet to roust Wilson from his experiments, but he is aware enough of what goes on around him still that it will be a simple enough task."

Vlad smiled back, the rings of his transformation sliding back over him and making him look human again. "That sounds lovely, actually." 

He pulled off his hat and tied his hair back, following William into the house at a sedate pace. The moment he walked through the door, he could smell the meal that waited for them, stomach reacting quickly. "As far as business and busy goes, I have a video conference later, but that's still a few hours off.

"Wonderful." William's smile was warmer now. "I shall bring Wilson up from the depths of the lab."

As he walked off, Vlad frowned at his back. "Okay, now I know you're just messing with me by sounding extremely British-polite in mockery." he crossed his arms over his chest, raising an eyebrow when his uncle's shoulders started shaking with laughter. "I knew it! Admit it already!"

"I will admit to nothing!" he called back, his pace speeding up until he was practically running out of the room.

Rolling his eyes, Vlad paused as a wave of hot air rushed over his lips, waiting to see who was arriving this time. When a head of dark hair popped up through the floor, followed by a set of dark blue eyes, he smiled and held out a hand. "Hello Danielle." he pulled her to her feet, "How was practice today?"

"It was good." she grinned at him, then nudged the toes of her shoes together. "Uh, actually, I have to talk to you about that." one of her hands still in his, she flipped it over so that her palm was facing up. "I seem to be producing firey-ice. It looks like fire, moves like it, but it's- It's frozen when you actually touch it. When I was trying to recreate it to show Dan, it switched to the other way around." she waggled her fingers, staring at the tips of them in concentration. 

Sure enough, what looked like a coating of ice swallowed her hand, revealed to be fire when he ran his own fingers through it. 

Swallowing, Vlad's eyebrows arched upwards. "Well then." he managed, blinking a couple of times. He took her hand in both of his, watching as the fire reacted to his core, rising up off of her skin in slow, small waves. When it arched around his wrist, plucking briefly at the sleeve of his shirt, he shook it off, still watching in fascination. "What did Daniel think of this?"

Danielle shrugged. "Said it must have something to do with how you made me." she frowned. "He seemed to think that there was something- Vlad? Are you alright?" leaning in close, she put a hand on his face. "You're shaking and you kind of went a little pale."

"I never told you." Vlad muttered, pulling his hands away from hers and nearly jamming the heel of one palm into his teeth as the other hand tangled in the ends of his hair. "Dan knows, Daniel knows, how is it that you don't?" he looked at her, his eyes wide as he swallowed nervously. "When I was creating you, the process was unstable, damaged, practically impossible."

"I know that." she frowned. "What are you trying to say?"

Vlad took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. "The shape of your nose is not accounted for in the genetics of Daniel's family. If the color of your eyes were several shades lighter, they would match his but they don't." a slow breath this time, drawn through his nose. "Daniel's core is ice, my dear." he flexed his hands, avoiding her gaze as flame rippled to life around them. "Mine is fire."

It was Danielle's turn to blink in confusion. "What?"

"Like I said, the process was unstable and-" he shook his head, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes. "It was easier to start with an established science rather than pioneering a new one. Cloning a sample of genetics and creating a new life, that was simple enough." Vlad looked at her, a helpless expression on his face. "Creating an identically aged clone out of a sample that small? Problematic and insanity to even try."

"...Wait, you're saying- What are you saying?" Danielle stepped closer, eyes widening in alarm when he stumbled backwards. "Vlad?"

"When I created the first version of you, she failed after only a matter of days." he admitted. "When I tried again and created you, the version that has survived, it was with the addition of my own DNA in the mixture."

Danielle nodded as he said this, her hands still in the air where he had left them. "So you're saying that I'm..." she took a deep breath, smoothing her hair back from her face, revealing a hairline that was basically identical to his. "I'm yours and his? Is that what I'm hearing here? I have two dads."

"You-" Vlad went stiff, watching as the expression on her face shifted to a grin. 

"...Look, you might not have ever been the best dad, but you were kind of all I got." she explained, finally dropping her hands down, twisting her fingers together. "You were kind of an ass and you never seemed to really care for me until you needed me to do something for you." she nodded, then continued. "But I only got one dad, and he was the one I had even if I hated him for a long while.

"Danny tried to act like a brother to me, but it never really worked. At first, I think he figured out that it must have been something in his brain that just saw me as a kid..." she laughed. "I mean, that makes no sense! What am I even saying? But he would just start acting like I was his kid." her hands dropped to her sides. "I got confused for a while. I actually started to miss you, even when you were busy doing your stupid villain thing."

"...If it helps, I am no longer doing my 'stupid villain thing'." he said softly, hands tangling together behind his back. 

Danielle nodded. "It helps a lot."

They stared at each other for a moment before she grinned and pressed herself against his front, her arms wrapping tightly around him as she jammed her face into his shoulder. "Danielle?" Vlad asked nervously, eyes wide as he stared down at the back of her head. "What-"

"If you're okay with it, I kind of want to call you Dad." she said, the words muffled.

A second of stunned silence passed before Vlad's shock-pale face warmed and he nodded, one hand rising to the back of her head and petting carefully at her hair. "I would like that. No more insane plots to get a child, just my daughter and myself." he paused, making a face. "Perhaps another in the family, but that is a hope that has yet to come true."

Pulling away to see his face, Danielle laughed, a few tears streaming down her cheeks. "Considering what I've heard from Danny and from Clockwork, I have some hopes for how that's gonna go."

Rolling his eyes, Vlad turned away, offering her a hand as he went. "There is dinner ready if you would like."

She wrapped her hand around his, practically skipping as they walked towards the dining room together. "I haven't been in here for a long while." she muttered, helping him push open the doors. Her jaw dropped when they opened enough to allow them in, her eyes almost wide enough to fall out of their sockets.

Instead of the table that had taken up most of the length of the room before, there was one that would seat a group of eight.

It was made of dark grey wood, silver details pressed into the grain of the legs and sides, and it was surrounded by comfortable looking chairs. Sitting in one of them was Wilson, a book propped on the edge of the table, his hand moving across the page at a furious pace, his brow furrowed as he mouthed the words he was writing. "There may have been some changes..." Vlad shrugged when Danielle looked up at him. "I suppose that growing pains are not all bad."

"You kept your chef though." Wilson interrupted himself to say without looking up. 

"I would consider her a necessity, if you realize how little the two of you eat without prompting." Vlad shot back, an eyebrow raised. "I am aware of some of what went on in the other world you survived in, and I understand some of the reactions, but you could stand to pay a little more attention to physical world things."

Wilson 'Hmm'd' and nodded slowly, pressing the end of his pen to his bottom lip. "And you could stand to pay a little more attention to the people around you, because there is something you seem to have overlooked."

"What is that?"

It sounded like a conversation that had occurred before, and Danielle looked between the two before hooking her foot in the bottom rung of a chair. She sat down with a grin on her face, balancing her chin in her hands, turning to look when the door behind them opened again. 

William smiled at her, walking around his nephew and taking a seat next to Danielle. "Are they hissing at each other again?"

"They do this a lot?" she asked in return, an eyebrow raised. 

"It is jesting, light-hearted and not intended as mockery or hatred." William explained quietly, raising a hand to pat gently at her shoulder. "Thus far, it seems to be a routine between the two of them, which is pleasing to me because it means that there is a settling of separate households into a singular family." he took a deep breath, looking up over the edge of his glasses. "Much like when a parent remarries and has to join together with another sort of chaos."

Nodding, Danielle laughed. "Is Wilson the step-parent in this case?"

"I believe he might be."

"Should we interrupt them to tell them that dinner's getting cold?" she asked quietly, feeling the gnawing sense of a sort of home edging in on her as she looked at the group around her. It only grew when William smiled at her, the small lines around his eyes crinkling even further with the motion, his hand slipping from her shoulder to reach for Wilson's hand. The scientist's skin was ink splattered, and he flushed a shade of pink before looking at William, a smile on his face as well.

"And if I am to be a step-parent," Wilson turned to Danielle as he spoke, "Then you are my step-granddaughter, and I will be at peace knowing that the two of you have come to an amount of peace in your lives."

Danielle nodded, leaning around William to meet his eyes. "I'm okay with that, I like having family beyond just Danny and Dan. They're good to have, and I don't think that anyone in the history of everything has ever had a more protective brother than Dan, but I kind of do want to have more people in my life that I can trust."

Vlad put a hand on her shoulder, a look of adoration mixed with surprise and happiness on his face. "We're working on it."

"I know."

The group of them started eating, threads of conversation picking up and dropping off as they ate, an air of calm and peace hanging over them.

 

XxXxX

 

Clockwork watched through a portal as the newly assembled family gathered together at the dinner table in Vlad's home. 

"Are they doing okay?" came Dan's voice from behind him, a tone of worry in it.

"They're doing fine." he turned to look at the other, holding out a hand and beckoning for him to come closer. "They've sat down to eat and Danielle was told of her true family bloodlines and now we only have to worry about what happens next." he sighed, pressing his forehead to Dan's shoulder. "You've got a pulse today."

Dan's upper lip curled back, his posture shifting to match how uncomfortable he felt. "It seems to come and go, ever since Rewind messed with things." he paused, watching the scene of the family together. "Should we warn them that the others will be arriving?"

"Not yet."

They sat together in silence, Dan's hand stroking through Clockwork's hair as he pressed his nose into the ghost's neck. When he broke the quiet, it was with another question. "Should we at least warn Danny about Lancer?"

"Again, not yet." Clockwork turned to meet his eyes, a small but affectionate smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "While I am pleased with the shift in your attentions over the years, it's not our place to warn them. That will come, and it will come soon," he sighed, an affectation of life, then shifted so that he was pressed closer to Dan. "But until that time, we can only watch. Daniel and Vlad struggle to figure things out."

"I just wonder if they're going to figure it out before their hands are forced." Dan grumbled, lifting his head to watch the image of the small family eating together. 

Clockwork smirked. "I have many doubts about that."

"Vlad hates himself too much, Danny'll be the one to approach the question first." Eyes filled with amusement caught the Master of Time's, a sly grin blooming beneath them. "Bet you anything."

Caressing the handle of his staff, Clockwork allowed himself to be pulled into the man's lap, curling one arm backwards, around his neck to hold him close. Around them, various portals, all filled with the images of life that they were required to watch over, glowed brilliantly green. The eerie light fell over them, illuminating the places where they touched. 

"I am not taking that bet, Dan."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry that this took so long to update. I did not mean for it to be almost four months between the chapters.
> 
> I started school and job hunting had to happen and life just went chaotic all at once.
> 
> Anyways.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter! It's the last of this section, but far from the end of the story. I plan on backstory-ing for a lot of the characters, as well as explaining what happened to those who were turned human by Rewind.
> 
> (If that's a spoiler, this far down, I have to think that you didn't actually read the story.)
> 
> Tell me what you think?

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome, welcome, to the absolute random shit that my brain puts out sometimes. 
> 
> I am going to be treating this seriously, so this is definitely not a crack fic. Just want to say that now. I also wanted to say that this entire thing came about because I did some math and looked at Maxwell|William's face and Vlad's face and they looked kind of related. Their noses and their mouths are the same shape.
> 
> This, because I am me, spawned something that is likely going to be at least 20K long.


End file.
